O2 NEWS: REPRESENTATION

1. Which women are represented and how? 10 marks 

Women are under-represented in the Observer front page. This is because of the patriarchal social and cultural attitudes. For example, women are mostly shown in underwear adverts, which reflects the cultural attitudes as it was mostly men that would read the Observer, therefore sexualising women. Another woman that is represented is Jackie Kennedy who is only being depicted as it was her husband who was famous but is now she was getting remarried and had to defend herself. As well as this, the Queen is shown looking emotional after visiting the mourning valley. Jane Asher has made the front cover of the newspaper for 'My face and I' purely because of her looks. Only one female politician is mentioned, Barbara Castle which was unusual as she was seen as a strong female figure, she was trying to argue for less unequal pay. One of the covers also shows an interracial marriage between a white man and black woman which was so unusual it managed to make the front page. To summarise, most women are represented because of their male partner or as a pretty figure that the men can admire, with the exception of Barbara Castle who many men were starting to respect. 

2. 

Music Video, Music Language

Sk8er boi:

Mise-en-scene: The city centre in LA is very run-down and she performs an informal concert

She says the boy wears baggy trousers and the posh girl "pretty face" was embarrassed by him.

flashbacks to "pretty face" and Sk8er boi is shown on camera.

Camera Movement:

Sk8er boy - hand held, always on the move (a lot of editing) 

Teenage Dirtbag - conventional, steady and cuts between performance and narrative in a very clean and orderly way.

Representation of age/gender

 

age:

- the celebration of older musicians - eg. the photo of Nick Cave and the reference to Elton John who was big in 1970 - goes against stereotypes of popular musicians being young.

- the stereotypical representation of older people as facing an uncertain future - 'there are lots of grievers out there'.

- the stereotypical linking of excess and youth but using a photo of the members of Queen when young to illustrate a cover line about excess.

gender:

- the stereotypical representation of male seriousness and authority in the image of Nick Cave.

- the stereotypical representation of male artists as excessive in the cover line about Queen. 

- it is stereotypical to link masculinity with warfare and aggression.

Explain how music videos use media language to promote their artists (10 marks)

Mise-en-scene, sound, camerawork, editing 

Mise-en-scene- there is a great sense of hierarchy in the music videos with the difference between the protagonist that desperately wants to belong and the 'popular' boys who treat him like dirt. The setting of the high school is both where the performance of the band and story take place and they finally merge at the end on the stage in the prom. They use brightly strong colours and show contrast between the football jock bully's car and the dirtbag's bicycle. It delivers the narrative of their always being a princess or reward. 

Camerawork- Both the band and the story are in shot. The camera rests on close shots, mid shots and high shots. there were pans around the artist. Most artists want to be in their music video as it is a way to promote themselves and the close ups authenticate an artist. close ups of an artists face shows that they are playing an instrument or singing and are established artists. Both artists and story merge together in the final prom 

MUSIC MAGAZINES: MEDIA LANGUAGE

Look carefully at the front covers of MOJO and RNR magazines. 

QUESTION: How far do MOJO and RNR use different media language to create different connotations? (CONNOTATION meaning: an idea or quality that a word makes you think about in addition to its meaning.)

Answer on your blog. This is a high-value question and should take all lesson to answer. You can use the class blog search engine for more examples of how to analyse music magazines.

In your answer you should have 2 paragraphs:

• analyse the media language in MOJO and RNR magazine. 'Media language' includes the placement of the main image, the type of photography, lighting, colours, fonts, how busy or restrained the cover is, the layout (such as alignment to the margins), how serious or playful 
• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the media language is used differently in both extracts to create different connotations. Are there similarities in both covers? What sorts of audiences are they targeting? You could think about MOJO's rock aesthetic of living loud and dangerously compared to RNR's folk, rock, blues vibe. 
• MOJOs choice of colours is vibrant, electric and dynamic, particularly in the primary colours of the covermount with its playful skeleton. By contrast, RnR uses soft, dull, browns and only red as an accent colour
• Foo Fighters
• pull quotes 'we've been to funerals, we've been to jail' shows the struggles that the Foo Fighters have faced.
• This represents the stereotypical lifestyle of a Rockstar
• colours are playful and language is dark
• Christy Moore
• although both magazines conform to genre conventions and feature a star in the centre of visual interest and celebrates them, MOJO does so in a more dynamic, aggressive, confrontational way compared to RnR's gentle, low-key, folksy vibe. This is because MOJO targets a primarily male rock audience whilst RnR is aimed at folk and blues.
• MOJO has a more busy cluttered cover due to cover lines, images, puffs as well as a very dynamic cover mount in neon colours with a vibrant cartoon image 
• RnR has many cover lines too, but they are more minimalistic and justified to the RH margin. They are all in white creating a calm, orderly, uncluttered, organised quality. Equally, the cover mound with its modest verbal play unheard, it is very plain and streamlined. 
• Although both music magazines feature many articles which is typical for music magazines, RnR is more orderly and restrained.

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