Exam questions

Paper 1- news

Four questions:

One 10 marker- applying one of the 19 theories to unseen covers.
One 15 marker asking you to analyse the one/two unseen covers in terms of media language/representation/genre/bias etc.

One 10 mark question asking you to discuss how your case studies in relation to a question like, 'Explain how the political/social/cultural context in which newspapers are produced influences their ownership, context and regulated.  e.g. institution, media language, representation and audience (plus social, historical and political significance) E.G. "explain how the political context in which newspapers are produced, influences their regulation. Refer to The Guardian and the Daily Mail newspapers you have studied to support your answer.

Analyse the representations in sources A and B. Use Curran and Seaton media industries theory

Curran and Seaton's power and media industries theory states that the media (such as newspapers) are owned by large conglomerates, resulting in lack of creativity and thought. They say they will produce repetitive media that they know will sell because it will make a profit and gain the owners of these companies power.

 The Guardian however is owned by The Guardian Media Group which is owned by Scott Trust Limited. This means that The Guardian will be less mass produced and less opinionated as it is not owned by one or a couple of people with strong bias opinions, such as The Daily Mail. Source A would suggest maybe The Guardian would like to remain in the EU from the headline 'over and out' but maybe only slightly, however is it hard to say for sure. The is because of the owner of the The Guardian that we don't have this strong political opinion forced upon as it is owned by a media group which tries to keep creativity alive and not mass produce for power and profit.

The Daily Mail is owned by one man called Lord Rotheremere. This man is a strong conservative and a good friend of David Cameron, and has supported him often. This means the The Daily Mail newspaper has very strong conservative views which are often racist, homophobic and extremely bias. Take source B for example, the newspaper is clearly supporting leaving the EU from the bold masthead 'Take a bow, Britain!'. This is when we found out the population had voted to leave the EU and The Daily Mail is very happy about it from it's positive use of language.

The Guardian would also suggest being not politically bias thought the representation of the people on the front cover of source A. David Cameron is stood alone with a neutral/ sad look on his face. His wife is standing near by for support. This is again not strongly suggesting a political opinion at fist glance. You would have to read into it to maybe think that this newspaper is upset about leaving the EU.

1. Analyse the representations in sources A and B. Use Van Zoonen's concept of patriarchy in your own answer.  

Van Zoonen's theory states that in patriarchal culture, the way women's bodies are represented as objects is different to the representation of male bodies as spectacle. Gender is 'what we do' rather than 'what we are'. It's meaning changes with cultural and historical contexts. Patriarchy is where the males are holding the power and women are largely excluded from it. The representations in the newspapers mostly support Van Zoonen's theory. 

On both front covers David Cameron appears vulnerable. On The Sun, David Cameron is looking miserable and on the verge of tears. This would go against Van Zoonen's theory as he is appearing as vulnerable, which would suggest he is not in control and power. However he is a man who was still the Prime Minister at the time. He is dressed in an expensive suit, he has his hair done perfectly and he is very rich and powerful.  

The camera angle on both The Sun and on The Times newspaper are either close ups or medium shots of him. His body hasn't been seen as an object like Van Zoonen says women's bodies are. If he was a women Prime Minister he would have his whole body being shown, being objectified and judged. Even so the camera angle is low connoting that he is dominant and in power, which would suport Van Zoonen's theory, that males are a spectacle of power.

Although both sources construct the story in different way, the connotations offered are the same and the way they are constructed further reinforces patriarchy. Both images on the covers are of David Cameron as their main image; he is referred to in both papers as the 'PM' or 'Prime Minister', anchoring the idea of male authority.  

The only presence of a women on the front covers is of David Cameron's wife. Her only sole purpose of her being there is to be seen as Cameron's partner, supporting him, holding his hand looking pretty and being the doting wife. This confirms Van Zoonen's theory of patriarchal assumptions about female roles, as she is there just to be looked at.

The journalist bylines of these news articles are men which reinforces the idea that males dominate important economic jobs. The owner of the Daily Mail is Lord Rotheremere who is a friend and supporter of David Cameron so he going to want to make him look strong and powerful, so the Daily Mail is supporting Van Zoonen's theory. 

To conclude Van Zoonen's theory that males are holding the power in the patriarchy is supported by the front covers. There is juxtaposition of gender representation on these newspaper covers. David Cameron is looking close to tears (which is a stereotypical feminine trait) but powerful due to the setting, his job role of being the prime minister and the fancy suit, it mkaes the paper more marketable as society will be intrigued to see him not behaving in a way that completely fits male stereotypes. The news stories reinforce patriarchal ideas of male political power, while the emotional image of Cameron contradicts his usual representations of male authority and further highlights the social expectations of gender. 

One 10 marker applying one of the 19 theories to newspapers/online:learn all the theories and practice applying them. 

Evaluate the usefulness Shirky's theory in understanding audiences for online newspapers such as The Guardian and The Daily Mail. 

Shirky's theory can be applied to online newspapers such as The Daily Mail and The Guardian 

and their accompanying social media when evaluating the impact of technology on newspapers and audiences; however it can have some limitations. Shirky's end of audience theory states that audiences have changed dramatically when using technology, 'consumers are now producers'. 

Shirky's theory is useful in understanding audiences of online newspapers as he argues old media is 'filtered then published', it used to go though a process of going though the journalist, subeditor, legal team, editor and then published to the audience. However now new media is 'published then filtered'. This need to be done because the internet moves so quickly not publishing an article as fast as possible will result in someone else running the story before you, therefore loosing money. There is a downside to doing it this way, as journalists are no longer fact checking making the news less reliable which results in the audience trust journalists and the media industry less which has a negative impact on the industry. An example of this is on August 28th 2017, The Guardian and The Daily Mail ran a fake news story of Houston airport flooding with a photoshopped of the planes under water. As they looked at it fast and didn't fact check it they didn't realise that it wasn't real. This helps us to understand audiences as we can see how they can be susceptible to fake news, as the audiences are no longer passive, like Shirky states, they will see the article, believe it then press share because they want to be active.

Shirky's theory also highlights the fact that changes in technology have changed the relationship between producers and audience as all amateurs can now become a producers of a media text in competition with professional producers despite a lack of media training and knowledge of media law. In other words, modern media allows amateur producers, who are not media professionals or employees of newspapers to share their work, comments, videos, creations and opinions online to a global network which they couldn't do before; you can see this everyday on The Daily Mail and Guardian social media pages as amateurs add to stories. There are pros and cons to this change in audience, or as Shirky puts it 'death of audience as they are now - to some extent - all producers themselves. As Shirky highlights, the main con is that their reporting may be less reliable because they lack training and, unlike professional publishers of online news will publish mainly for a profit and their for make news/facts their business, amateurs  mainly publish because they are passionate about something and want to emotively engage with an audience. The man who created the photoshopped image of the airplanes under water didn't sell his image to the newspapers, he created it because he is passionate about global warming. The newspapers took his image and made it out of context, making it fake news. This makes the audience very mistrusting in online newspapers.

Shirky believes that audiences have changed in many ways and his theory helps us understand them greatly. He believes that the mass audience that had very predictable behaviour is now gone. Audiences are no longer passive, they are now active. They now want to interact with the media, share, like, comment and create because of the use of technology. Shirky also believes that because of technology has changed out expectations and behaviour. Since we are now an active audience we expect to be able to have that level of interaction with products. This means that the audience expects the same from online newspapers such as The Guardian and The Daily Mail, these two newspapers both have Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages where the audience can interact with them, allowing them also to be able to 'speak back' to the producers telling them what they like and dislike, giving more equality of power.

To conclude, Shirky's end of audience theory helps to understand the modern audience and we can compare it to the past. Although the audience has become very mistrusting of online newspaper, the Guardian and The Daily Mail are still employing journalists who are trained which makes it more reliable than news made by the audience. The audience writing without a qualification is called citizen journalism.  Newspapers can  see the content from everyday people that won't always be the truth and share it without fact checking. Shirky's theory is helping us understand that the audience is being active and creating their own content as they want to express their own feelings and opinions, however it can be negative as it opens up a gap for a mass amount of fake news.

4. Evaluate the usefulness of one of the following in understanding audiences for online newspapers such as The Guardian and The Daily Mail. 

Gerbner's cultivation theory states that if an audience has exposure to television over long periods of time they will acquire standardised roles and behaviors. For example, to develop 'mean world syndrome from prolonged exposure to high levels of television violence. Gerbner also found that heavy TV viewing led to mainstreaming, giving them opinions based on images and labels on TV. Even though the theory was written about television it can easily be applied to online news although there are limitations. Gerbner's theory can be applied to online newspapers and is useful in understanding their audiences, mostly to audiences within a 'digital bubble' who only consume messages from a narrow range of sources that target their demographic and physical and physiographic, such as news feeds on Facebook. However their are some limitations as Gerbner's theory was created for films, but I will explore it in terms of online newspapers

Gerbner's cultivation theory may apply to a wide range of media products including online newspapers. As the Daily Mail Online focuses on racism and violence. For example on 11/02/18, when a man had been charged with the suspicion of abduction of Libby Squire he was labelled as ‘Polish’ is a negative way which was completely unnecessary to state his race. This would support Gerbner's cultivation theory as the Daily Mail are focusing on ‘bad’ news which is creating the belief in the audience that the world is a dangerous place characterized by these negative events. This supports arguments of those who think online newspapers should be regulated to avoid public harm and adds to the idea that reading these newspapers it can increase violence. Since Brexit there has been an increase in negative hate crime. 

Those who argue that online newspapers should be regulated to avoid public harm could be wrong. As a form of intertextuality researchers at the University of York have found no evidence to support the theory that video games make players more violent. This research could be applied to online newspapers since we may be reading violence and racism may not actually change are opinions and views, we may read newspapers as a source of entertainment but it may not affect us in our day to day lives and opinions. On the other hand there are those who argue that people are not influenced about what they read and say as the majority of people have not gone out and acted upon the negative stories. 
The Guardian have always claimed to be politically neutral and at first glance at their online newspaper you would agree with this, however looking closely at news articles views and opinions are embedded into them making inflicting their views on their labor audience. Gerbner's theory states that audiences are more likely to use labels and stereotypes penned in the paper. This could be said for The Guardian as a recent story has reported on ‘English councils accused of hiding scale of homelessness crisis’. Although this could be seen to be helping homeless people it can also connote that councils are made up of very bad people that are trying to rule out homelessness and let it go under the radar, supporting Gerbner's theory. In other words the negative stories are creating a national divide in opinions. This is making others act out and argue online about these topics. 

To conclude I agree with Gerbner's theory that the media creates cynical world syndrom, that Newspapers draw attention on bad news giving their strong opinions which are inflicted on the consumers. Since the media owners are in control of what gets put into newspapers they can control consumers and make them see things in any way they like, and this can influence peoples opinions and the way they act out to others, which might be in a violent way.  

Paper 2 -news

Two questions:One 30 mark comparison essay (Homelands/Trapped) WRITE AND REVISE/LEARN OFF BY HEART ONE ESSAY FOR THIS COVERING all areas (plus social, historical and political significance).

How are representations of ethnicity constructed though media language in episode 1 season 1 of homelands.

Ethnicity: the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.

Representations of ethnicity in Homeland season 1 episode 1 are both positive and negative. The representation of ethnicity is presented by the producers of the show in specific ways to trigger different feeling and emotions from the audience.

Ethnicity is presented in homelands through the casting choices. The director of the CIA is David Estes who is a black American. He is shown to have power and be in control of many situations and of the CIA. The fact that he is a black man in control could be show to be very controversial. Many people as well as the American audience are racist so seeing this man in power of all of the white people may anger them. This would suggest that using a black man in power is showing more equality and teaching the audience about equality. An example of when Estes took charge and action over serious situations would be when we see Estes brief his team about a successful special forces strike on an enemy base in Afghanistan that killed 13 militants.

The terrorists in Homeland episode are seen to be all black such as Abu Nazir. We don't know as the audience yet that Brody is a terrorist so we can't assume that he is. As white ethnicity goes Brody does follow the white stereotypes. Brody has produced a nuclear family that seems to or should be perfect as he is very high up in his career and he has a lovely wife but we are never even led to think this as from the first scene that we see Brody's wife Jessica she is having sex with another man. Later on in the episode we then find out that this man is Brody's best friend. This relates to Brody's ethnicity as it goes against all of the American culture traditions of the typical family.

PRINT/READ THE 30/30 AND THE 15/30 EXAMPLEOne

 10 marker: applying one of the 19 theories to TV drama (Homeland/Trapped). Learn all the theories and practice applying them. 

'Evaluate the relevance of Strauss' narrative theory to long term television drama.'

Levi Strauss' structuralism theory of 'binary oppositions' can be applied to Homeland Season 1 in a number of ways and is relevant because if binary oppositions were not to play, as Levi Strauss himself summarised, the narrative would be less engaging for the target audience.

Levi Strauss theory of binary opposition can be applied to Homeland season 1 as one of the opposing themes is sanity vs insanity. One of the main protagonists in Homeland is Carrie who when on her medication for her mental illness (bipolar) is strong mined driven and can think straight and most of all is very sane. However though out the season Carrie's illness builds up and up and she is finally pushed over the edge in episode 12. This is important to the plot as it is very interesting for the target audience, as they follow her journey of her illness. The target audience are also interested in the theme of Carrie's sanity vs insanity as her job requires her to be very sane as when she is not it make's her very vulnerable as a person and in her job position, this leaves the audience on edge and tense when she is insane as they are scared to see what irrational decision she will make next.

Another main opposition in Homelands that is relevant to Levi is good vs evil (America being good and the Middle East being evil). This is relevant as when the first season of Homeland was first aired a lot of Middle East people were stereotyped as a lot of terrorist attacks were taking place such as the twin towers. This would be cathartic to the Americans as they would get an insight to see what action is happening to prevent terrorists in America although most of is may be fiction. Terrorist attacks are ever more present today and especially in British culture as more and more terrorist attacks are happening today.

Evaluate the relevance of Neale's theory to long term television drama.

In Homeland season one, a long term crime drama Neale's genre theory of 'intertextual relay' is supported because it follows a number of crime drama common conventions. This makes the drama relevant and entertains to the audience who have come to expect, and be entertained by, these conventions.

Carrie the main protagonist in homeland follows the conventions of the lead role despite her gender. The protagonist in crime drama's are often strong minded, brave and independent. Carrie shows all of these characteristics and traits throughout season one; for example when she had to do an interrogation on a man it could of been quite intimidating but she was very argumentative and got him exactly where she needed him. This is very relevant to Neale's theory as she fits the role of a main protagonist detective. Carrie however can distrust Neale's genre theory as she has a mental illness, this can often make her vulnerable and a stereotypical hormonal woman. This is strange as the criminal is often the one with the illness. The audience would find this interesting  as it is different to what would be in a normal crime drama. I still agree with Neale's theory since when Carrie was recovering from her illness she still showed determination. For example in season one, episode 12 she was meant to be resting but still went to the presidential election to try and stop Walker who shot many people.

Mise-en-scene follows conventions, and therefore Neale's theory since in Homeland the lighting is often Low key. Low key lighting often has the same effect as pathetic fallacy. When Carrie bumped into Brody she started to panic she ran outside and it was pouring down with rain. Carrie's embarrassment and panic was reflected by the weather making the scene more dramatic and tense for the audience.

Evaluate the relevance of Todorov's theory of narrative for long Television drama 

Through watching Season 1 of Homelands, it became evident that Todorov's narrative theory could apply to individual episodes, much like films, and the season of a whole. I think that Todorov's narrative theory is very relevant to the success of this popular crime drama because the way the director/writer followed Todorov's narrative ensured the audience was entertained (Blumer and Katz, 1973) by the rise and fall of the suspense and tension.

Todorov's narrative theory argues that a successful narrative uses; equilibrium, disruption, resolution and new equilibrium to progress the narrative and engage the audience, my research into long term TV drama has shown me that this theory can be applied but in a different way that I have previously experienced with Hollywood films. This is because the way these texts are consumed is different, a film can easily follow Todorov's narrative theory in a short space of time (between 1 and 3 hours) whereby a box set may continue over a number of episodes of a season. What I noticed this resulted in way Todorov's theory being applicable to individual episodes but also the season as a whole, another key difference being a viewer was rarely left with a sense of satisfaction from a resolution at the end of an episode, or season, because the nature of the product needed to leave the audience on a cliff-hanger (disruption) in order to sell future episodes or seasons. 

Specifically, in terms of Homelands Season 1, unlike a Hollywood film that may have two-three disruptions, there were 41 disruptions to the narrative during the season averaging 3-5 disruptions per episode; in terms of the relevance of this long term TV drama having this many disruptions was necessary to the success of Homeland because it was a crime drama that needed to keep building tension and keep giving new red herrings to explore. Also equilibrium's and resolutions were used to allow the tension to drop in order to make new disruptions more tense.

Homeland episode 1 started with the equilibrium of Jessica believing her husband, Brody to have been killed in Iraq and she is shown to be moving on as she is in bed with Brody's best friend Mike.; this later proves to be a disruption as it is revealed Brody has survived. Parallel editing shows another equilibrium, Carrie, using  her intel guy for information; quickly a disruption shows this intel guy getting killed. In short, Todorov's narrative theory is used to create tension an suspense at every turn to engage audiences who want a tense crime drama narrative with lots of twists and turns.

As a season as a whole I believe that Todovo's narrative theory is used to build suspense gradually throughout the whole season. For example in the first episode Pilot there was only a few disruptions that are there just to set the scene but the final episode of the season it is full of dramatic scenes with very few equilibriums or resolutions. The relevance of this is to make sure that the audience are engaged. An example of this is that in the first episode Brody is telling a women about her husband died this is interesting to the viewer and is suspense form how upset she and Brody are about his death. It makes the audience want to watch on as Brody is giving a sense of lying. This scene is important as the death of Tom Walker is a massive sub plot of the season. In comparison to the last episode of the season there are many huge disruptions that cause extreme suspense and tension for the views. Such as when Brody is about to blow up the bomb jacket but in then doesn't explode. The relevance to Todorov's theory to this is that the whole build up to this episode is huge and shows how Todorov's theory is effective to get the audience to keep watching the whole season. This last episode is a further disruption and leaves hundreds of more questions that can be solved in the following season.

To conclude I think that as the season progresses, the main aspect that link to Todorov's narrative theory is disruption with few equilibriums. Just as a disruption is resolved it is then quickly disrupted again leaving the audience then wanting to keep finding out if the disruption will ever be resolved. Since Homeland is a crime drama it is vital for the disruptions to never be completely resolved as the disruption ask more and more questions for the audience that they want to guess and find the answers they watch on. The more views that every episode get the more gross profit is being made.