impact of media products on audiences

Impact of media products on their audiences

• What is meant by the media effects debate?
• Can you provide details of media based moral panics?

censorship is the banning of some sort of content.

classification is regulating the content and who sees it. 

Classification issues:

• Dangerous behaviour
• Discrimination
• Drugs
• Language
• Nudity
• Sex
• Sexual violence and sexual threat 
• Threat and horror
• Violence

1. Texas chainsaw massacre - 18 - 18. I think this is appropriate. 

2. Apostle - 16 - 18. This is probably appropriate because its messed up.

3. silence of the lambs - 18 - 15  I would of thought that this film would of been higher, maybe because it is an older film and the graphics weren't as good. 

4. human centipede - 18 - 18 

5. Kill bill vol 1 - 18 - 18 

Data types and research methods.

Be able to evaluate and research data used by media institutions. 

• Research techniques and methods.

What are the basic classifications of research and what are the strengths and weaknesses:

• Primary- Information that you have researched and found out yourself.
• Secondary- Information that other people have found out.
• Quantitive- Getting as much data as possible but it may be in less detail.
• Qualitative- Getting less data but it is in more detail and it is more valuable.

Media companies do research into their target market to see what they like/dislike so they don't waste money as they could be spending millions of pounds on these products. 

Quantitative- 

• A downfall is that people may not be truthful in questionaires and they may lie just so that they finish it quicker
• There are many strengths with this type as it is quick and easy and they may have a wide range of answers and statistics. 

Qualitative- 

• A downfall of this type is that it takes a long time and people may lie as they have been put on the spot. 
• The strengths are that it is very detailed information and it can help to understand in a clearer way than quantitative.

Secondary-

• One weakness would be that it could be unofficial and/or done by a not professional person. The reviews could be done by one person with a different opinion to everyone else. 
• One strength is that it is easy to access secondary data and it is easier to get this than doing a survey yourself. 

Primary-

• The strength of this research is that it usually results in very useful and detailed information. You can find out what you want to find out and not what other people wanted to find out. 
• One weakness is that people could not like the options that you have given them and it is very time consuming. 

Zombie horror films.

Zombie Horrors.

Most zombie horror films start with absolutely no explanation for how it became a zombie apocalypse and what may of happened to make there be ravenous dead people running around eating other people. Instead of giving an explanation for why these mindless zombies are running around killing people films like Zombieland and Dawn of the dead have absolutely no explanation for the zombies at all and instead the films go straight into very gory violence that normally introduces our main character. 

It is very typical for our protagonist to seem very nerdy and be a very unlikely survivor within the world of zombies, in the case of Zombieland we are introduced to Columbus who is a skinny nerdy looking character who does not look as though he would be able to hold his own in a fight because he doesn't have any muscle, In Dawn of the dead we are introduced to Ana who is a young Blonde skinny woman, which stereo typically would need saving by a stronger male because they are seen as being weaker than men. In 28 days later the main character wakes up after being in hospital and walks around the deserted streets of London wondering where everyone has gone (which again  gives no explanation for why there are zombies).

Obviously these characters would probably not survive on there own throughout a whole film length and they would need to find a badass muscly character who at first hates our protagonist but realizes overtime that you know what they aren't that bad, this badass character will be shown to have a soft side as well that you didn't expect. In the case in Zombieland Tallahssee is seen as being a very strong miserable badass who hates everyone but gets immense pleasure out of killing zombies however he is seen to have a sad past when he talks about how the zombies killed his dog.In 28 days later Jim finds Naomie who his not what you'd expect a typical badass to look like but for a while she odes help Jim out, until Jim has the strength later on in the film to save Naomie.

In most zombie films its not just the zombies that our protagonist and badass sidekick will have to look out for because in the majority of zombie films they find an evil human who plans on either killing our protagonist or being an overall inconvenience in some way or another. In The case of Zombieland Columbus and Tallahassee find Wichita and Little rock who steal their car and guns twice, however in this case they end up becoming friends and killing Bill Murray by accident together. In 28 Days later Jim and Naomie find Major Henry who plans on getting his men to rape Noamie and Hannah who is only about 14 in the film.

In the majority of Zombie films there ends up being a very dodgy romance story that would never happen unless there was a zombie apocalypse in the case of Zombieland Columbus ends up getting with Wichita after he saves her at the end of the film from a massive amount of zombies that come to the amusement park that they were at. In 28 days later Jim ends up getting with Naomie after he saves her from Major Henry and the rapist soldiers.

Most Zombie films end with a big fight scene where they kill many many zombies and there is so much 'zombie slaying' that will probably make you feel sick from the amount of guts and blood that you see being thrown all over the screen. This is obviously a major audience pleasure for a fan of zombie films as they are going to want to see as many zombies killed and/or humans killed by zombies as possible. I've linked the final battles for Zombieland below.

Zombieland final fight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz2_sA1RxJY
The walking dead farm fight scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MMUnaV7j8

I think that most audiences who watch zombie horror films do not particularly  care for an over the top plot or an explanation for why there are zombies running around they mostly just want death and a lot of it. They want some violence, some gore, maybe some romance but not a lot of it.

Mise-en-scene

• The typical costumes that we would expect the characters or the zombies to be wearing would be like ripped old dirty clothes depending on how long it is supposedly been since the apocalypse began.

• The typical setting of a zombie film would be mostly city based as thats where the higher populations would be and thus have more zombies.

• Some typical props would be Guns, Knives and maybe creepy stuff like chains or teddy bears for child zombies.

• There tends to be very monotone colour dark yellows and light browns to create this feeling of death. 

Sound

• We hear a lot of diegetic sound such as gun shots,  zombies groaning or bullets penetrating the skin of a zombie being burst.
• Non Diegetic sound such as music would probably be quite intense music with a heavy drum beat to make it very suspenseful. 

Editing

• Most zombie films would start with not really much cuts it would start slow and introduce us to our main character.
• As the film goes on and there is our be all and end all fight the cuts become more frequent and it speeds up the action. 
• There could be a few shot-counter shots as our protagonist would maybe see his/hers first zombie.

Camera 

• There is a lot of establishing shots to show the masses of zombies that can be around or in an area.

Here are some critic reviews for Zombieland:
'Horiffically Hilarious! Fun, Funny, and Scary!

This is a great, original comedy. It made me laugh out-loud many times. But it was VERY scary with lots of zombie violence and gore, the type you'd see in 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead. If you've seen Shaun of the Dead you'll get an idea of what this is like: hilarious, but scary and graphically gory. PARENTS: kids will be freaked out by some jump scenes and a zombie clown (I'm not even afriad of clowns and it scared the crud out of me)! Very gory, almost gruesomely so, but very funny. If you can handle lots of graphic gore and a zombie clown (who doesn't show up for very long; only one scene, but it's freaky), then you should enjoy this awesome comedy. Thanks for reading - Movie Man'

In most zombie horrors Claude Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposition can be applied as it is mostly dead vs alive. With the zombies being dead and whatever group of surviving people against them. 

Audience theory

The Two step flow theory.

The two step flow theory was thought up by Katz & Lazarsfield, 1955.

Considerable support for the two-step flow of information- Almost half the information that originates from the media passes to the masses indirectly via a diffuse intermediate layer of opinion leaders, who although classified as ordinary users, are more connected and more exposed to the media than their followers. 

Media- opinion leaders- followers 

1. The media being the news or information that can be interpreted different by certain  people.
2. Opinion leaders are defined as people who are respected individuals within the community. Such as prominent celebrities or journalists, however nowadays opinion leaders tend to sides the media entirely and speak with us directly using social media.
3. The opinion leaders would then pass on the information that they have interpreted onto their followers. 

An example of an opinion leader giving information onto their followers would be Al Gore doing a documentary about global warming. His followers would watch this and if they particularly liked him as a person they would tend to believe him and believe what he says over other people. 

This media however could be very biased as a particular opinion leader may have a particular understanding that would make the media then  be misread or misunderstood as the followers only see what the opinion leaders see. 

hypodermic model -?
Reception theory-?
Uses and gratification theory-?

Genre- Theories

Genre

David Chandler says this about genre: Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shared by the texts which are regarded as belonging to them. 
John Fiske says: 'Genre attempts to structure some order into the wide range of texts and meanings that circulate in our culture for the convenience of both audience and producers'.
David Bordwell says: 'any theme may appear in any genre' He asks: 'Are animation and documentary films genres or modes? Is the filmed play or comedy performance a genre? If tragedy and comedy are genres, perhaps then domestic tragedy or slapstick is a formula'

Denis McQuail argues that:
The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to pro- duce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its cus- tomers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication.

Memento

The film Memento is about a man who's wife died in an attack that he also lost his memory in. Lenny (our protagonist) does not have the ability to make new memories and the only thing that he can remember is his wife who was raped and murdered by a man that knows simply as 'John G' Lenny has partners who at first we think are friends helping Lenny to find John G however we realise that Natalie and Teddy are using him for different things because they understand that Lenny will not remember anything. The film ends with Lenny killing Teddy after realising that Teddy is using Lenny to kill people.

In the film Memento we can apply Propp's theory of characters his theory was that in every film there are 7 types of characters or 'spheres of action'. the first character type is the hero, who in the case of Memento would probably be Lenny we see him trying to avenge the rape and murder of his wife, however the difficulty with Lenny is that he is very easily tricked into doing bad things by Teddy. The next one of Propp's character types is the villain kn this film the villain would be Teddy because he tricks Lenny into killing people who he says are John G but they aren't in fact John G but as Lenny cant remember killing anyone and he does not know what John G looks like Teddy can get Lenny to continue to kill random people who he says are John G at the end of the film Lenny realises that this is what Teddy has been doing and he kills Teddy. The third one of Propp's character types is the Donor who is Natalie, the Donor is said to give the hero thing and in memento we see Natalie supplying Lenny with information about John G however this information maybe incorrect as we do not know if Natalie was a good person and if she was actually trying to help. The Helper in this film would probably be Lenny's tattoos and photographs as although they are not actual characters we see these helping Lenny to try to figure out who John G is. However the thing with Lenny's tattoos is that he does not even know that he has them until he sees them as he forgets and i guess you could say that instead of the tattoos being the helper the actual tattooist is the Helper. The Princess is in this film Lenny's wife as she was murdered and she meant a lot to Lenny. The dispatcher is Lenny's bad memory because if Lenny had a normal memory and could make new memories and didn't forget everything then he would really have a mission because he would of already done it. In this film I think that as well as being the actual hero Lenny is also the false hero as because what he is doing is wrong and because he has been killing the wrong this whole time without knowing.

The film Memento can have the theory of Levi Strauss applied to it as well, his theory stated that a films conflict comes from different sets of binary opposition. In Memento there are a few Binary oppositions that add to the plot and cause conflict within the story. I think that the biggest binary opposite within this film is Memory vs Forgetting as Lenny has a very hard time with his memory and is unsure who to trust and what has happened. Without Lenny's poor memory the film wouldn't have the big conflict. Lenny's memory is roughly about 10 minutes after that he forgets what he has done or is doing. There is one scene within the film were we see an example of this as Lenny is running alongside a man who has a gun and we hear his thought processes in his head as he does not remember what has happened leading up to this point and he says 'am I chasing him, no, hes chasing me' this shows the extent to which Lenny's memory is bad. The most common of these binary oppositions that tends to exist in most films would be Good Vs Evil in this film the lines between good and evil are quite blurred and we learn that the characters that we believe to be good aren't actually good and they have been using Lenny for the fact that he has a bad memory. Even Lenny himself because of how easily he is manipulated could not really be considered as good because what he is doing is trying be good and avenge his wife but Teddy uses Lenny to kill other people that Lenny believes to be John G but they aren't but as Lenny cant remember killing them he continues his hunt for John G.

This film had two narratives, one that was in black and white and one in colour. The narrative that was in black and white was going backwards and the one that was in colour was going in chronological order. The film would jump between these two narratives and it started with Lenny killing Teddy in black and white and ended with Lenny killing Teddy in colour because we saw how the events unfolded to get to that point. Todorov has a theory about narrative his theory states that there are 5 stages in all narratives for the sake of this essay I am just going to focus on the colour narrative and not both. The first stage states that there is a state of equilibrium where all is normal or what is expected to be normal within the film this would be Lenny living with his bad memory and looking for the murderer of his wife. The next stage within any narrative according to Todorov is that there is a disruption of this equilibrium, in this case i think the disruption would be the introduction of the character of Teddy and how he 'helps' Lenny find John G. According to Todorov after this there would be a recognition that the equilibrium has been disrupted in this case I don't think that this stage applies because of a Lenny's bad memory obviously he would be unable to know or remember if something changed however as an audience we start to realise that Teddy is using him. The next stage would be an attempt to repair the disruption of the equilibrium in this case when Lenny goes to the abandoned motel to kill who he thinks is John G and he realises that Teddy is making him kill random people and that John G might all ready be dead Lenny kills Teddy. The last stage within Todorov's theory would be a new equilibrium, when Lenny kills Teddy this sets a new equilibrium because Lenny will no longer have distractions on finding John G from Teddy and he will be able to search for John G although he may already be dead and he may not know it.

In conclusion I think that the film Memento can have all three theories applied to it: Propp's theory of character types, Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposition and it can partially have Todorov's theory of narrative applied to it. However because of the unique way that this film is set out with the different narratives it is hard to apply Todorov's theory.

Magazine cover analysis