September

Course outline

Study aids

 

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Call the Cops
Tuesday Sept 9, BBC4, 22.00
Perfect viewing for Year 13s: the story of genre-busting 1970s crime drama The Sweeney, which later inspired Life on Mars.

Medium
Wednesdays, BBC1, 22.45
One of America's highest-rated programmes, a fusion of the horror genre, crime drama and domestic soap.

The Dark Knight   12
No academic reason - it's just a very good (if flawed) film...

Representation: stereotypes
In the first hour we had great fun analysing everybody's collages, before I made some sweeping generalisations about all teenagers, based on the evidence in front of me, and 'accidentally' created a stereotype. Running slightly short of time, we ran through what a stereotype was and students went away to investigate media stereotypes as homework.

Narrative
In the second hour we told stories to one another in an attempt to define narrative. By the end of the lesson we had all agreed that strong narratives typically required cause-and-effect and beginning-middle-end structures, characters and obstacles overcome. We also explored Tzvetan Todorov's equilibrium model of narrative structure, and the class applied stories they knew to it.

Homework:

Read and annotate the Representation booklet, and complete the stereotyping task.

Make notes to answer the following questions:

1. What kinds of media narratives end with exactly the equilibrium they started with?
2. What kinds don't follow Todorov's structure?
3. What does the phrase "Once upon a time..." mean? What does it signify to its audience?

DUE: Monday September 24

Key Concepts: Representation
Extending what the class had already learned about Semiotics with Miss Clay, we looked at two different images of an apple (one juicy and fresh, one wrinkled and rotten) and discussed the different meanings of the two. We identified a series of 'core' (sorry) questions about Representation as a concept: who/what is being represented, how, to whom, by whom and with what effect?

I then gave the class an imaginary scenario and we discussed the different ways we might recount the event to different audiences - with entertaining results!

Homework:

Create an A3 collage using images from newspapers, magazines etc. that represents you. We will use these as the basis of our next lesson.
DUE: Wednesday September 19

Media language: Semiotics
We wrapped up our introduction to Semiotics by analysing the opening titles of the TV series Hustle, identifying the different kinds of signs in the text and what they communicated to the audience about the programme.

Key Concepts: Genre
To wrap up our study of Genre, we looked at the promotional posters of two different genres of films, identifying and discussing the ways they conveyed their genres. It was interesting to see how certain codes and conventions had become popular in poster layout. We also diverted briefly down the 'institution' highway to discuss how the changing status of actors might influence poster design, especially in sequels!

Media language: Semiotics
Starting with a previously unseen image, we explored how body language, clothing etc can be decoded to discover meaning. We defined terms such as denotation and connotation, semiotics, and agreed on the differences between sign, signifier, signified and referent. The semiotics handout was very helpful.

This led us on to a discussion of the different kinds of sign and the way they create meanings for an audience:

• Iconic (resembles what it signifies)
  e.g. a stick figure of a man signifies a man
• Indexical (is evidence of what it signifies)
  e.g. smoke signifies fire
• Arbitrary (doesn't resemble what it signifies)
  e.g. written or spoken words
• Symbolic (stands in for what it signifies)
  e.g. a crown signifies monarchy.

Homework:

Using this photograph and two other images found from newspapers or magazines, repeat the annotation exercise from class, exploring denotation and connotation and using the new vocabulary you learned in class.

Then write a thorough, bullet-point analysis of the advertisement distributed in class. Use all of the ideas and terminology you have learned so far.

DUE: Tuesday September 19

Med 1: Key Concepts - Genre
For our first lesson on the key concepts of Media Studies, we introduced the idea of Genre, the French word which literally means category or type. We explored how we made assumptions about genres based on the the posters produced to promote a range of different films, which in turn introduced the idea of hybrids and sub-genres.

We explored genre conventions more closely using a table to represent what's called the Repertoire of Elements, and students paired up to suggest the conventions of different genres with which they were familiar.

Homework:

Complete one more Repertoire of Elements chart for the genre of your choice.