Media product 1 - An excerpt from Educating Yorkshire (Channel 4, 2013)
Media Product 2 - An excerpt from Waterloo Road (BBC1, 2013)
Question 1
How do the two texts use narrative techniques to draw the attention of an audience?
The two texts use narrative techniques to draw in an audience. Educating Yorkshire is an eight-episode series based on the BAFTA award-winning series known as Educating Essex. The other media clip shown is an extract from Waterloo Road; a trailer shown on BBC1; which is a nine series show and has attracted a large amount of viewers. Throughout the clips shown, there are various narrative techniques which are evident. One theory which can be applied to both texts is Todorov's narrative theory in regards to equilibriums. Educating Yorkshire's main focus; in the clip; is on Mushy who is a boy in the series who is attempting to overcome his speech impediment. The clip shows how this character is trying to overcome the problem in an attempt to read a speech out loud. Mr Burton; who is a teacher at the school; is helping him with his disequilibrium in order to help Mushy overcome his problem. This point also links to Propp's theory of character types as Mushy can be referred to as the hero (attempting to succeed in the situation) and Mr Burton as a helper to the hero.
In the extract from Waterloo Road, Todorov's theory is also present as we are shown how a single girl is creating friction in the school and this is the first sign off this. The disequilibrium is when this girl kisses another boy; who has a girlfriend. There is then a cutaway at the reaction of the guys girlfriend which could be seen as a action code as we see her as not happy - potentially foreshadowing a fight/disagreement breaking out in the future between them two. The disequilibrium is then left unsolved as this is typical code and convention of a trailer. By Todorov's theory of equilibrium not being solved, this creates an enigma code (Barthes) as we are left wondering what is to take place in the future. Furthermore, this technique draws in the attention of the audience and almost makes viewers want to watch and find out what series of events is to take place.
The narrative shown in Educating Yorkshire portrays a school which is
Tuesday 29 April 2014
Monday 28 April 2014
Thursday 24 April 2014
Paul Weller children win privacy damages over photos on Mail Online
Associated Newspapers pays £10,000 over seven pictures of teenage daughter and twins on Mail Online in 2012
Three of singer Paul Weller's children have won £10,000 privacy damages after their faces were "plastered" over Mail Onlines website. Weller (aged 55) sued Associated Newspapers for misuse of private information on behalf of daughter Dylan, who was 16 when the seven pictures of her appeared on Mail Online back in October 2012, and twin sons John Paul and Bowie, who were 10 months old.
The one-time frontman of The Jam and the Style Council was not at London's high court to hear the ruling by Mr Justice Dingemans.
The pictures were published after a paparazzo followed Weller and the children on a shopping trip through the streets of Santa Monica, California, taking photos without their consent despite being asked to stop. Associated Newspapers argued that they were entirely innocuous and inoffensive images taken in public places and that the Wellers had previously chosen to open up their private family life to public gaze to a significant degree.
Weller gave evidence that he did not volunteer information about his family when he spoke to the press to promote his records but was a candid person who would answer a question if asked. He said: "My preference would be just to talk about my music but I can also see that would be a very dull interview. It's just chit-chat. There's a big difference between that and someone following you around and taking photos of babies. That's a distinction that needs to be made."
In my opinion I think that the paparazzo were in the wrong to constantly keep taking photographs of them after Weller told them to stop. They need their privacy and they should respect that however we as individuals; in this day and age; no longer have the privacy which we were once able to have.
MusicQubed aims for ‘forgotten fans’ priced out by streaming music services
British startup thinks there is room for mid-priced music apps as an alternative to Spotify and iTunes
Digital music in 2014 tends to divide between three main strands: Apple’s iTunes and other download stores; streaming music services like Spotify, Deezer and Rdio; and YouTube or Vevo for music videos. It's basically a market split between people buying individual song or album downloads; people paying £10 a month to stream anything they like (well, apart from Atoms for Peace or the new Beyoncé album); and The Kids merrily streaming all their music on YouTube.
This isn’t quite the whole story, though. A growing number of companies are exploring what you might call “mid-price” subscription music services, hoping that there are lots of people out there willing to pay a few quid a month for a more limited selection of music.
Another company exploring this mid-priced space is British startup MusicQubed, which runs the O2 Tracks service for mobile operator O2.
Available for iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10, the app downloads the UK's Top 40 chart plus extra tracks and playlists to subscribers' phones every week, charging O2 customers £1 a week and everyone else £4.99 a month.
In my opinion I think that music streaming services are much more easier to use on a day to day basis instead of downloading music off iTunes or syncing music to my phone (which can take some time). Streaming music is quick and easy and also studies have also proved that streaming services have decreased the amount of piracy that takes places to a certain degree.
Associated Newspapers pays £10,000 over seven pictures of teenage daughter and twins on Mail Online in 2012
Three of singer Paul Weller's children have won £10,000 privacy damages after their faces were "plastered" over Mail Onlines website. Weller (aged 55) sued Associated Newspapers for misuse of private information on behalf of daughter Dylan, who was 16 when the seven pictures of her appeared on Mail Online back in October 2012, and twin sons John Paul and Bowie, who were 10 months old.
The one-time frontman of The Jam and the Style Council was not at London's high court to hear the ruling by Mr Justice Dingemans.
The pictures were published after a paparazzo followed Weller and the children on a shopping trip through the streets of Santa Monica, California, taking photos without their consent despite being asked to stop. Associated Newspapers argued that they were entirely innocuous and inoffensive images taken in public places and that the Wellers had previously chosen to open up their private family life to public gaze to a significant degree.
Weller gave evidence that he did not volunteer information about his family when he spoke to the press to promote his records but was a candid person who would answer a question if asked. He said: "My preference would be just to talk about my music but I can also see that would be a very dull interview. It's just chit-chat. There's a big difference between that and someone following you around and taking photos of babies. That's a distinction that needs to be made."
In my opinion I think that the paparazzo were in the wrong to constantly keep taking photographs of them after Weller told them to stop. They need their privacy and they should respect that however we as individuals; in this day and age; no longer have the privacy which we were once able to have.
MusicQubed aims for ‘forgotten fans’ priced out by streaming music services
British startup thinks there is room for mid-priced music apps as an alternative to Spotify and iTunes
Digital music in 2014 tends to divide between three main strands: Apple’s iTunes and other download stores; streaming music services like Spotify, Deezer and Rdio; and YouTube or Vevo for music videos. It's basically a market split between people buying individual song or album downloads; people paying £10 a month to stream anything they like (well, apart from Atoms for Peace or the new Beyoncé album); and The Kids merrily streaming all their music on YouTube.
This isn’t quite the whole story, though. A growing number of companies are exploring what you might call “mid-price” subscription music services, hoping that there are lots of people out there willing to pay a few quid a month for a more limited selection of music.
Another company exploring this mid-priced space is British startup MusicQubed, which runs the O2 Tracks service for mobile operator O2.
Available for iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10, the app downloads the UK's Top 40 chart plus extra tracks and playlists to subscribers' phones every week, charging O2 customers £1 a week and everyone else £4.99 a month.
- O2 Tracks launched in March 2013, reached 60m track plays that July
- O2 ran a £7.3m ad campaign for O2 Tracks last year
- In March 2014 there were around 15m plays a month for its first four months for 02 Tracks
In my opinion I think that music streaming services are much more easier to use on a day to day basis instead of downloading music off iTunes or syncing music to my phone (which can take some time). Streaming music is quick and easy and also studies have also proved that streaming services have decreased the amount of piracy that takes places to a certain degree.
Tuesday 22 April 2014
Beyoncé releases an album – within a week it's as if it had never happened
Why the revolution in digital distribution has made the delivery of news, music and entertainment more significant than the content
On 13 December last year Beyoncé, the biggest music star on the planet, released a new album called Beyoncé. They say it sold a million digital copies in six days. That in itself was not surprising. On the seventh day, it was as if she had never even released an album due to the fact that no one was even talking about it. It seemed like everyone just wasn't bothered. That's a reflection of how much the revolution in distribution has changed the game known as the music industry. The music business has come to terms with something that the rest of the entertainment and media world is dealing with in differing ways. Despite the repeated pieties about the magic of creativity and the special skills of writers, image makers and personalities, content is not king.
Its now all about the delivery and the way artists are promoting their albums. Its not just a matter of the content, timing is now also a contributing factor.
YouTube and iTunes are just two of the brand names that were largely unknown 12 years ago but have now eclipsed all the record labels in all the world. It's similar elsewhere. The delivery mechanisms are the new stars. These are either free or they feel as if they're free, they touch us all in a way that individual products don't and they're designed by people so attuned to our inner child that they can make us hug ourselves from sheer delight. It's increasingly our expectation that there will be more revolutions in the means of delivery than there will be in the things delivered. We wait in a permanent state of arousal for the new, new thing.
Publisher's 'conversational' replacement for Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight takes on Vox and Washington Post's Wonkblog
The New York Times has launched a new site featuring a combination of data-driven and explanatory reporting. It faces stiff competition from other high-profile rivals including the Washington Post's Wonkblog and Vox Media and Ezra Klein’s explanatory journalism site Vox. The paper first announced the project in March and has been working on it since Nate Silver left the paper and took his FiveThirtyEight blog to ESPN.The Upshot combines analysis of the news with data visualisations.
The Upshot's editor, David Leonhardt, a former Washington bureau chief and economics columnist at the New York Times, wrote on its Facebook page on Monday that "the site's main goal is to help people to better understand big, complex stories like Obamacare, inequality and the real-estate and stock markets".
"...by writing in a direct, plain-spoken way, the same voice we might use when writing an email to a friend. We’ll be conversational without being dumbed down.
"We will build on all of the excellent journalism the New York Times is already producing, by helping readers make connections among different stories and understand how those stories fit together."
In my opinion I think that this idea and website consists of a great foundation concept as it is helping people to understand thee news. The news can be quite boring and time consuming to sit down and watch therefore this site will make it less of a chore for the younger generation to find out what's going on. Furthermore, it's use of interactivity will help non computer literate users gain the information they need with ease.
The Upshot's editor, David Leonhardt, a former Washington bureau chief and economics columnist at the New York Times, wrote on its Facebook page on Monday that "the site's main goal is to help people to better understand big, complex stories like Obamacare, inequality and the real-estate and stock markets".
"...by writing in a direct, plain-spoken way, the same voice we might use when writing an email to a friend. We’ll be conversational without being dumbed down.
"We will build on all of the excellent journalism the New York Times is already producing, by helping readers make connections among different stories and understand how those stories fit together."
In my opinion I think that this idea and website consists of a great foundation concept as it is helping people to understand thee news. The news can be quite boring and time consuming to sit down and watch therefore this site will make it less of a chore for the younger generation to find out what's going on. Furthermore, it's use of interactivity will help non computer literate users gain the information they need with ease.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)