# data[].attributes.body
I will post a number of articles on here each week and I will expect you to read and make notes under your name.

Make sure you are not copying and pasting sections of the article, but summarising the text in your own words.

The text I want you to read will be linked to our lessons, so you need to make sure you complete the reading so that you are prepared for our class discussions.

# data[].attributes.body
Semiotics is a fancy way of describing daily activities. It is about making meanings through things like words.

Words alone cannot be understood, it is the meaning that we assign to them that allows us to recognise what the word actually means.

Ferdinand Saussure suggests that meaning is given by having the signifier and the signified. This creates a sign which people can interpret and later analyse.

Roland Barthes's theory suggests that meanings and ideas are created collectively; a word/phrase/image/ concept is brought about in society and assigned a meaning. This meaning is 'naturalised' and accepted by everyone.

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: Cinematographic Expression

Reading 2: Psychology of Colour - https://www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-2795824

# data[].attributes.body
Framing eliminates things without importance

If framed wrong tension can be lost
Since scale in the cinema constantly changes from shot to shot, viewers can
easily be deceived about the size of objects
In the distance an actor may seem
lonely, remote, helpless, pathetic; close up the performer may appear powerful

Different scales are occasionally juxtaposed in a single shot to produce an
unmistakable dramatic or rhetorical effect.

In one sense or another, children, dogs, and beggars are often looked
down upon, while the preacher in a pulpit, the judge on the bench, and the police
officer on a horse are looked up to.
Framing, scale, and shooting angle are all greatly modified by the use of camera
movement, the effect of camera movement
depends on the context and the pace of movement.

Very rapid camera movements may express a sudden surge of emotion or a
contemplated action, like the suicide scene in Sherlock.

A practical, accurate commercial system of colour cinematography was not
perfected until Technicolor was introduced in Walt Disney’s animated
short Flowers and Trees.

Colour Psychology
Red is used to stimulate the body and mind and to increase circulation while yellow is thought to stimulate the nerves and purify the body, orange is used to heal the lungs and to increase energy levels, blue is believed to soothe illnesses and treat pain, indigo shades are thought to alleviate skin problems.

Existing research has found that color can impact people in a variety of surprising ways:

Warm-colored placebo pills were reported as more effective than cool-colored placebo pills in one study.3

Blue-colored streetlights can lead to reduced crime according to anecdotal evidence.

Studies have also shown that certain colors can have an impact on performance. For example, one study found that seeing the color red before taking an exam actually hurt test performance.

Color can play an important role in conveying information, creating certain moods, and even influencing the decisions people make. Color preferences also exert an influence on the objects people choose to purchase, the clothes they wear, and the way they adorn their environments.

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: Silence Analysis

Reading 2: The importance of film editing - https://www.openculture.com/2019/08/the-importance-of-film-editing-demonstrated-by-the-bad-editing-of-major-films.html

Reading 3: Narrative through sound - https://narrativethroughsound.wordpress.com/

# data[].attributes.body
It often requires a lot of skill and patience to create audio in a scene that is consistent and doesn’t draw attention to itself. When done well, the effect should be almost invisible. When done well, the effect should be almost invisible. The opening scene of A Quiet Place manages to use room tone and diegetic sound in a remarkably innovative way.

Editing
It’s one of cinema’s greatest ironies that editing can make or break a film, but few moviegoers understand what an editor actually does. Editing involves taking shots and assembling them in the right order. Even if we can’t explain good editing, we know bad editing when we see it, and even more so when we feel it.  In Suicide Squad “many of the cuts are unmotivated,” which mean that the editor made them for no apparent reason, at least none serving story or the drama.

Narrative through Sound
Narratology refers to both the theory and the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect our perception. When exploring some of the main theorists for Media there is a large emphasis on structural elements allowing the audiences to follow the pattern of a story. This was first explored by ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato.

# data[].attributes.body
Semiotics are meanings - why things are where they are
When you write a word like "bed" there is nothing implying the reasoning behind it but we still associate it with what we sleep in every night - this is a semiotic
Connotations have an importance in Media
Anything that someone can interpret as a sign IS a sign
Meanings can change over time - ("Brexit" could sound like a breakfast years ago but now is the movement of GB out of EU)
Ideas are created collectively as a society
There are different "codes" that help viewers understand narratives
Russian Dolls - on Netflix - acts as a code as it foreshadows things in the show
Semiotics can be things you've already done or things you are doing.
Inside Jokes can count as semiotics

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1 - An Introduction to Genre Theory

# data[].attributes.body
Semiotics is the practice of making/reading meanings. It is what we associate with certain words/concepts/ideas. Making meaning is an active process. Society collectively accepts newly constructed meanings of a phrase or an idea which then becomes naturalized.

naturalization: the process of establishing myths

myths: widely accepted meaning of a sign.

According to Ferdinand de Saussure, anything can be interpreted as a sign. This can be separated into 2 concepts:
- the signified
- the signifier

Signs are polysemic, they can have different connotations

Roland Barthes built on this theory and developed the idea of "narrative codes" which can be identified through 5 different ways:

- symbolic:

- enigma: anything in text that is mysterious or unexplained

- cultural: refers to an external body of knowledge thats scientific, historical, or cultural.

- action: how sequential actions can create meaning (predictive sequence of actions) e.g picking up car keys--> driving.

semantic: refers to elements of text that carry deeper meaning (connotations)

# data[].attributes.body
Perceptions of color are somewhat subjective however there are some color effects that have universal meaning. Some emotions that evoke are often deeply rooted in a persons' background and cultural experiences. Research has demonstrated in many cases that the mood-altering effects of color may only be temporary. This suggests that there are different connotations to color. Color is polysemic in meaning.

Colors in the red area of the color spectrum are known as warm colors and include red, orange, and yellow. These warm colors evoke emotions ranging from feelings of warmth and comfort to feelings of anger and hostility.

Colors on the blue side of the spectrum are known as cool colors and include blue, purple, and green. These colors are often described as calm, but can also call to mind feelings of sadness or indifference.

# data[].attributes.headline
importance of silence in film/narrative through sound

# data[].attributes.subject
importance of silence in film/narrative through sound

# data[].attributes.body
Genre
The word genre comes from the French (and originally Latin) word for 'kind' or 'class'. The term is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory to refer to a distinctive type of 'text'
Another film theorist, Robert Stam, also refers to common ways of categorising films:

While some genres are based on story content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). Some are performer-based (the Astaire-Rogers films) or budget-based (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (Black cinema), location] (the Western)
Specific genres tend to be easy to recognise intuitively but difficult (if not impossible) to define. Particular features which are characteristic of a genre are not normally unique to it; it is their relative prominence, combination and functions which are distinctive.
There is a particularly important feature which tends not to figure in traditional accounts and which is often assigned to text-reader relationships rather than to textual features in contemporary accounts. This is mode of address, which involves inbuilt assumptions about the audience, such as that the 'ideal' viewer is male; as Sonia Livingstone puts it, 'texts attempt to position readers as particular kinds of subjects through particular modes of address'.

# data[].attributes.body
The Five Narrative Codes of Roland Barthes
The hermeneutic code is the code of puzzles which the “questions are raised”
The proairetic code is also called as code of action  and each action of the major character can be compiled into five sequences of the plot in flashback and flash forward structure.
Connotative code is hint and flickers based on Barthes’s explanation. Besides, this code is also known as code of themes or thematic code that the theme of the story is developed by this code. Furthermore, the connotation can be sticking on the characters, and places.
The symbolic code is the code of ‘theme’. Symbolic code discusses the theme based on something that have contrary thing.
Although many movies use linear narratives to tell their stories, Citizen Kane most certainly does not. To begin with, this non-linear narrative starts at the end, with the death of Charles Foster Kane, media mogul and multi-millionaire.
By presenting Kane from these different perspectives, the film enables its audience to gain a very rounded picture of a very complex man, but those perspectives also allow the audience to make up its own mind about Kane.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Reading 1: MM76_CitizenKane - Narrative techniques

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 2: https://journal.trunojoyo.ac.id/prosodi/issue/viewFile/449/19#:~:text=Yet%2C%20none%20of%20these%20studies,%2C%20connotative%2C%20and%20symbolic%20code.

# data[].attributes.headline
Importance of Silence in film/narrative through sound

# data[].attributes.subject
Importance of Silence in film/narrative through sound

# data[].attributes.body
In the early days of Hollywood, every film was a possible liability for its producers and distributors. Most films were stand-alone; a one-off enterprise that had to capture the audience’s imagination or risk becoming a rotten tomato. The successful ones took audiences on a rollercoaster of emotion, had mesmerising narratives or followed the arcs of compelling characters, such as Rick Blaine in Casablanca or Forrest Gump in the eponymous film.
The international film market is a market that continues to grow, particularly in China and Russia, and as a result, the films we watch today are developed particularly for these markets. China is now considered the world’s second-largest theatrical release market with the expectation that it will soon become the largest. China now has more cinema screens than the US; an average of 27 new cinema screens was built per day in 2016 alone.
The Chinese audience want familiar brands, 3D and Special FX. They want the spectacle that only the American film studio can deliver with its big budgets and investment in post-production CGI. A good example is Transformers: Age of Extinction. This is a film that was co-produced by Paramount Pictures and China Movie Channel, making it the most high-profile example of Hollywood’s developing relationship with China to date. The film was criticised by reviewers for its weak plotline; however, it was the only film in 2014 to make over 1 billion dollars worldwide at the box office and this was the result of its popularity in China. If you’ve watched the film, you may have noticed that scenes were littered with Chinese product placement; the mise-en-scène was narratives or followed the arcs of compelling characters.
When the digital technology boom occurred, the DVD – died a quick death. Film studios all over Hollywood saw their profits fall and all looked desperately for new ways to be financially viable. Chinese cinemas will only screen 34 imported films each year so competition for the market is tough

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 2: https://aldaracademies-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/cchowdhary_alyasminaacademy_sch_ae/ES0L3diFUiRLp549dWRRXr0Bmqe78Xtn44cG7E4GiZKP7g?e=D9qMTS

Reading 3: https://aldaracademies-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/cchowdhary_alyasminaacademy_sch_ae/EevoI9Rk33tFuGWMx_LlM50Bgo3yQdPuyrTCsyJXjA9_ow?e=YYLSgB

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: David Gauntlett's Theory on Identity - https://media-studies.com/david-gauntlett/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Identity Theory

We might follow the fashion trends and new hairstyles we see on social media, buy the content creator's merchandise, or sing the same tunes from our shared playlists. Television shows could affect the way we behave towards other people, such as our expectations of romantic relationships or how we conduct ourselves in an office environment. As Gerbner suggested in his cultivation theory, it might shape how we see the world.

Even if you believe the media's power over us is less pervasive than the opinions of our friends and family, it is still worth exploring its impact on our identity.

Media, Gender and Identity

In his 2008 update to "Media, Gender and Identity", David Gauntlett argued our heavy exposure to the media could "hardly fail to affect our own way of conducting ourselves and our expectations of other people's behaviour". ¹ Although the research and case studies focused in the representation of gender, his approach can easily be applied to other aspects of our identity.

Fluidity of Identity

Gauntlett commented on the changing representation of men and women in mainstream media. For example, the depiction of the passive housewife throughout the twentieth century was being increasingly replaced by images of assertive women taking control of their lives, epitomised by the "girl power" endorsed by the Spice Girls. The representation of men being active and confident was giving way to a more introspective and emotionally-aware version of masculinity. Despite the old binary representations still finding their way to the front covers of magazines and forming the narrative of most Hollywood blockbusters, there is now a "greater diversity of identities".

In this way, we do not always have a fixed identity because are willing to adapt to new cultural norms. Consider the following advertisement for Lynx Africa deodorant and its representation of relationships.

The narrative begins with the boy meets girl trope but ends with the girl taking control of the relationship, suggesting a shift in the balance of power. There is also a break from the heteronormative ideology with the representation of the two boys at the bus shelter.

For a more detailed look at the fluidity of gender identities, you should read our introduction to Judith Butler's "Gender Trouble" which describes gender as a "stylized repetition of acts" and a role we are expected to perform.

Constructed Identity

Although the representation of femininity and masculinity might be shifting, they will still offer a variety of cues we can use in the meaningful construction of our identity. The magazines we read or the films we watch all provide information about ways of living which we can purposely and knowingly integrate into our own relationships and lifestyles.

For instance, we value the ideas expressed by the contemporary opinion leaders who dominate our social media feeds. If an influencer suggests we should visit a particular shop or buy a certain brand, we might act on that advice. The representation of characters in a sitcom or a film could help us discover our own identity.

This concept of the constructed identity is similar to the symbolic modelling in Albert Bandura's social learning theory which argues children learn behaviour from the role models they see on television.

Be the Hero

Gauntlett's own Lego Experiment, which is detailed below, supported two important sociological arguments regarding constructed identities. First, he observed how participants developed a "back stage" personality and a "public face", reinforcing Goffman's argument that we generate social performances depending on our audience. ² Think about the way you speak to your parents and teachers compared to the language you exchange with your close friends. In linguistics, the term register refers to the different words and phrases we use for different situations.

Second, we construct a personal biographical narrative to tell the "story" of our identity. ³ For example, we might carefully select which details to reveal so we can manage how we are viewed by other people.

Negotiated Identity

The media can help us establish our own identity - no matter what texts we choose to consume, there will certain representations of gender that will appeal to our own sensibilities.

However, there might be some tension between this construct and how we present ourselves to the world. Whether it is our relationships, interests or careers, we want to engage with others but still retain some individuality. Therefore, as Goffman argued, we need to reach a "working consensus" or agreement regarding the roles each person will assume in any interaction. ⁴

A negotiated identity is a balance between our own desires and meeting the expectations of others.

Again, think about how you interact with your teachers in school or college. Is your demeanour and tone of different from how you behave in the park with your friends?

Collective Identity

In terms of media studies, collective identity refers to our sense of belonging to group, especially because there is shared interest or love for a media text. Fandoms are an excellent example of this cultural experience because they try to define and develop a way of life.

Collective Identity
Football Fans

Identity Task

Now we have covered important four approaches to understanding identity, try to evaluate which ones are the most significant influences on your own identity. Do you define yourself by the team you support? Do you feel your appearance and behaviour in work is the real you? Is there any truth to the version you present to your friends? Or are you always performing a role?

Gauntlett on "Identity"

David Gauntlett and his approach to identity is part of the syllabus of A Level Media Studies. He created this video to help students consider his thoughts regarding representation.

Other Themes

Gauntlett offered a list of conclusions in "Media, Gender and Identity" that are worth pointing out. He assumed there was a generational divide in attitudes towards gender roles, but older people were less likely to be exposed to the new liberal representations of masculinity and femininity. He also wondered if this younger demographic would "grow up to be the narrow-minded traditionalists of the future".

He argued that role models served as "navigation points" that guide the audience through their own choices in life.

Finally, Gauntlett emphasised the contradictions in the media. While some texts offered a liberal and diverse representation of sexuality, for example, others repeated more traditional stance. Different messages could easily be found in a single text, such as the different sections in a magazine aimed at women. In this way, popular culture delivers a terrific range of values and our identities are just as complex.

The Lego Experiment

In a wonderfully innovative project, Gauntlett offered a group of young pupils from Leeds the opportunity to make their own video productions discussing important environmental issues. Their thoughtful and critical responses demonstrated impressive media literacy and a tremendous awareness of how the media constructs messages. The researcher concluded that newer methodologies were needed to investigate the media's influence on our behaviour because the old effects models of audience theory failed to properly explain the relationship. ¹

Gauntlett continued using his own approach, inviting participants to create artistic responses, such as collages and diaries, to describe their experiences with the media and the world. Perhaps the best example of these studies is his Lego Experiment.

In this simple task, Gauntlett asked people to develop a version of their identity by piecing together Lego blocks into meaningful shapes and then commenting on the decisions they made during the construction process. Reinforcing previous results, participants had no trouble building a representation of themselves, which suggested we have a solid understanding of our own sense of self. Of course, there were plenty of references to their hobbies, loves and aspirations.

Interestingly, very few people mentioned the importance of the media's influence on their identity.

Therefore, we understand and appreciate how the media constructs messages to the extent we can follow their codes of conventions in our own texts, but the media has a limited impact on our identity and how we view ourselves. Despite not having a powerful influence on our behaviour, the media does provide some signs, codes and narratives which we can use to express our identity.

Exam Practice and Revision

If you would like to develop your understanding of the media's impact on our identity, you can find lots of products to analyse on our representation exam practice page. The cover of Elle magazine with Billie Eilish is a good text to start your revision of the key concepts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
David Gauntlett's Gender and Identity Theory | Definition and Examples

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We might follow the fashion trends and new hairstyles we see on social media, buy the content creator's merchandise, or sing the same tunes from our shared playlists. Television shows could affect the way we behave towards other people, such as our expectations of romantic relationships or how we conduct ourselves in an office environment.

# data[].attributes.headline
Reading Week 5: Ownership and Technology

# data[].attributes.subject
Reading Week 5: Ownership and Technology

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 2:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/scarlett-johansson-sues-disney-over-black-widow-streaming-release-11627579278

Reading 3:

https://www.etonline.com/disney-ceo-defends-disney-releases-following-scarlett-johanssons-black-widow-lawsuit-170433

# data[].attributes.body
Laura Mulvey suggests patriarchy is inscribed in mainstream cinema by ensuring that men are the ‘bearer of the look’ whilst women exist ‘to be looked at’, primarily as sex objects for both the male protagonist and the spectator in the audience. Hence ‘who is looking at whom?’ is an important question; do we, as a spectator, see women through the male gaze? Mulvey also suggested that women’s bodies are often represented as fragmented, through the use of close-ups, giving women ‘the quality of an icon’ rather than an active agent in three-dimensional space. Applying Mulvey’s theories suggests that Fury Road can be seen as progressive in its representation of women. Through the institutional patriarchy that dominates the production of art, literature and cinema, audiences perceive culture through the male perspective and as such adopt a masculine world view. Some of you might have studied Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze theory which suggests that the camera, and therefore the audience, is positioned as male. Women become passive objects to this gaze, to be seen without being able to identify the looker. "I’m not obsessed with sex. Just can’t stop thinking about it. The performance of it, the awkwardness of it, the drama of it. The moment you realise that someone wants your body." Not so much the feeling of it. Fleabag’s problematic approach to sexuality reflects Waller-Bridge’s frustration about the objectification of women, as she told the Evening Standard.

# data[].attributes.body
David Gauntlett argued our heavy exposure to the media could “hardly fail to affect our own way of conducting ourselves and our expectations of other people’s behaviour"
Gauntlett commented on the changing representation of men and women in mainstream media.
The depiction of the passive housewife throughout the twentieth century was being increasingly replaced by images of assertive women taking control of their lives, epitomised by the “girl power” endorsed by the Spice Girls.
The representation of men being active and confident was giving way to a more introspective and emotionally-aware version of masculinity.
The narrative begins with the boy meets girl trope but ends with the girl taking control of the relationship, suggesting a shift in the balance of power. There is also a break from the heteronormative ideology with the representation of the two boys at the bus shelter.
collective identity refers to our sense of belonging to group,
Gauntlett offered a list of conclusions in “Media, Gender and Identity” that are worth pointing out. He assumed there was a generational divide in attitudes towards gender roles, but older people were less likely to be exposed to the new liberal representations of masculinity and femininity. He also wondered if this younger demographic would “grow up to be the narrow-minded traditionalists of the future”.

He argued that role models served as “navigation points” that guide the audience through their own choices in life.

# data[].attributes.body
Historically, media effects had tended to emphasise a three- or four-phase model with each phase characterised by either “significant” or “minimal” media effects. The first phase—a significant effects phase — begins in the 1920s and 1930s and often incorporates “magic bullet” or “hypodermic needle” metaphors, as if messengers shoot messages and effects into receivers. In this initial stage, as the enormous popularity of press, film, and radio intruded into everyday life. The next and third phase coincided with the rise of television in the period after World War II. While it was no longer feasible to return to the theories of Lasswell and his contemporaries, it was again possible to explore the long-term effects of media as significant. The focus was on cumulative change, and media effects theory emphasized direct effects models . Noelle-Neumann, who later developed the spiral of silence theory, was one of the phase’s researchers who called for a “return to powerful mass media.”

# data[].attributes.body
Working out who to trust and who not to believe has been a facet of human life since
our ancestors began living in complex societies. Politics has always bred those who
will mislead to get ahead.
But the difference today is how we get our information. The internet has made it
possible for many voices to be heard that could not make it through the bottleneck
that controlled what would be distributed before. There is great concern about how we control the dissemination of things that seem to be untrue – Paul Resnick, University of Michigan We need a new way to decide what is trustworthy. “I think it is going to be not figuring out what to believe but who to believe,” says Resnick. “It is going to come down to the reputations of the sources of the information. They don’t have to be the ones we had in the past.”
Ultimately, however, there’s an uncomfortable truth we all need to address. “When
people say they are worried about people being misled, what they are really worried
about is other people being misled,” says Resnick. “Very rarely do they worry that
fundamental things they believe themselves may be wrong.” Technology may help to
solve this grand challenge of our age, but it is time for a little more self-awareness
too.

# data[].attributes.body
The Walt Disney Company exemplifies how global media ownership debate is not as 'black and white' as film theorists would have us believe. Disney's production of local and politically conservative content for foreign markets, as well as its encouragement of aboriginal independence over production content, appear to contradict a clear one-way imperialist flow of media content.
An example of this was in recent events.
Scarlert Johansson, who plays Natasha Romanoff in Marvel's Black Widow, is suing Disney for intentional interference with contractual relations and inducing breach of contract. She  inquired for a jury trial. In the documents, which were filed in Los Angeles Superior Court late, Johansson claimed that the simultaneous release of Black Widow in theaters and on Disney+ was a breach of contract. According to the documents, the actress agreed that her pay for starring in Black Widow would be largely based on box office receipts, and she agreed to a theatrical release exclusive to movie theaters in order to maximize her pay. "There is absolutely no merit to this filing," a Walt Disney Company spokeswoman told ET. "The case is especially sad and upsetting because of its callous disdain for the catastrophic and long-lasting worldwide impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic."

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-uk-films-and-british-talent-worldwide-2019-07-25.pdf

Reading 2: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-commission-on-uk-independent-film-2018-07-18.pdf

Reading 3: (From page 10) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmcumeds/667/667.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Most people would define a ‘British’ film with reference to obvious cultural elements such as: a setting in the UK or a focus on British people abroad; a predominantly British cast; a storyline about some aspect of British life — past, present or future — or notably by, or based on a work by a British author.
One clear distinction that might be put forward is the language that the film is originally made in. But with both the Oscars and BAFTAs distinguishing only between ‘films’, i.e. English-speaking films, and
‘foreign language films’ this does little to solve the transatlantic difficulty and nothing to cater for culturally-British films made in other languages
UK independent film matters: it has the power to promote a diverse and vibrant way of life, influence how the world sees the UK with stories that
celebrate UK culture and ideas and drive the exports of UK plc. All increasingly  important as it left the EU and shape their new place in the world.
UK DIRECTORS HELMED 25 OF THE 200  HIGHEST EARNING FILMS WORLDWIDE SINCE 2001
UK qualifying films earned a combined worldwide gross of $9.4 billion in 2018, a 23% share of the global box office,
which broke the $40 billion barrier for the first time. Earnings for UK films equalled the record set in 2015 but represented a smaller proportion of global box office receipts compared with the 25% share achieved in 2015.
There has been a notable increase in the market share for UK films from 2015 onwards (2009-2014 average total share:
12.9%, 2015-2018 average total share: 21.3%).

# data[].attributes.body
Gender is a social construct designed to categorise men and women by certain traits that are usually sexist and stereotypical.

The prolonged practice of gendering children makes us believe that our definition of what a man/woman should be is based off of nature and not nurture.

girls are expected to cater to everyone’s needs and prioritise them in order to appear feminine, nurturing, caring and sensitive

boys are expected to be “boys”; reckless, aggressive, nonchalant/blunt and overly resilient to appear masculine, strong and brave.

Multiple studies have shown that gender is not fixed or binary. It is a fluid concept that sometimes can’t be simply labelled as male/female.  It’s a spectrum that more and more people are willing to explore the more they are educated. And with this knowledge we can dilute the reinforcement of typical gender roles in media and in our daily lives to ensure all sorts of people get the right representation they deserve, while breaking harmful habits and cycles that come with “being a man/woman.”

Gender representation is crucial when it comes to media especially when the target audience consist of minors. Young people are usually more impressionable since they’re passive, and can absorb harmful ideologies through cartoons/heroes/characters they look upto.  The repeated messages producers send through their content and films can shape a persons character all the way into adulthood.

# data[].attributes.headline
Reading Week 2 - The Changing Faces of Masculinity 

# data[].attributes.subject
Reading Week 2 - The Changing Faces of Masculinity 

# data[].attributes.body
Gender is a social construction, it is taught to us by external influences and it is ingrained at such a young age that we often mistake it as ‘nature’ rather than ‘nurture’.

Gender Trouble was written in 1990 and at the time it was a criticism of the current wave of feminism that saw ‘men’ as the oppressive enemy to ‘women’. Butler would argue that this particular feminist perspective perpetuates the idea that masculinity and femininity are binary states (at opposite ends of a scale) which reinforces ideas of patriarchal control. The gender ‘trouble’ she describes is when identities are formed that mess with the two binary states of femininity and masculinity. When Butler wrote Gender Trouble in 1990, she used transvestism as an example of an identity that upsets the status quo of manly men and ladylike women. But in the 30 years since, society has come a long way and there is significantly more ‘trouble’ when it comes to binary notions of gender. The phrase ‘non-binary’, referring to someone who doesn’t define themselves as either wholly male or female, is increasingly in common usage

Audiences are more likely to be drawn to things that they recognise, that chime with their reality, even though those ‘realities’ are – as Butler would argue – false, socially constructed and mediated.

# data[].attributes.body
score:
- the advert uses female sexuality to show men they can have power.
- the narrative of the strapline: 'get what you've always wanted' implies that the consumer can attain everything they desire if they buy the hair product.
- the tone of the copywrite targets overtly masculine qualities describing its 'masculine scent' and that it is 'produced by men'. This emphasizes that the product is solely for men and that it will in no way feminise any male using it.
- the brand reinforces masculine supremacy and stereotypes of a patriarchal society.
- a dominant reading of the score advert would be that as a heterosexual male, one can achieve anything presented before them in the picture: power, control and sex appeal with better hair.
- an oppositional reading would be that the macho-laden ideas presented in the image are damaging to male self-esteem and present women as passive and decorative.

Maybelline:
- Maybelline is working with their first male brand ambassador, Manny Guiterrez (Mexican-Spanish-American).
- they touch on issues of gender representation, ethnicity and lifestyle.
- the ad narrates that by applying the mascara, the wearer- female or male- is instantly transported to a more sophisticated cosmopolitan life surrounded by luxurious things.
- the ad uses an aspirational image showing 2 friends who do not conform to masculine and feminine ideals but are nonetheless powerful. (they are happy in their own skin, confident in their bodies and sexuality).
- 'live like a boss' is a positive mantra that is well used and common with the younger generations (their target audience).
- the mode of address of the whole campaign is youthful and empowering.
- the slogan 'lets get bossed out' suggest a positive and powerful mindset that can be achieved with just a flick of the mascara brush.
- Maybelline is challenging societal expectations of those who wear their product by adopting diversity in their advertising.
- they are showing support for everyone who wants to use their mascara.
- some audiences still believe that strong masculine role models can steer young males away from damaging and emasculating interests in beauty and makeup.
- society's ideologies of masculinity today are that men do not always have to be 'tough and strong'. It encourages the breakdown of a hyper masculine culture.

# data[].attributes.headline
Changing faces of Masculinity - Jan 11 22

# data[].attributes.subject
Changing faces of Masculinity - Jan 11 22

# data[].attributes.body
Today's masculinity tropes are almost unrecognizable from those experienced by 1960s viewers across all media platforms. The 1960s advertising creative teams would have some intriguing discussions with today's media lovers working in agencies.
'Get what you've always desired' is a strong statement of aspiration. The story is simple: if the customer buys the hair product, they can have everything they want. The copywriting's tone continues to emphasize Score Hair Groom's manly traits, highlighting its "masculine aroma" and assuring the target demographic that it's "made by men." This may alleviate any apprehensions a typical man may have about purchasing grooming products: no women were involved in the development of this product; it is purely for males; it smells manly; and using it will not feminize you in any manner. The brand's personality and language are all about macho dominance and self-confidence, and it's heavily reinforcing patriarchal tropes.
Manny Gutierrez, dubbed 'Beauty Boy' by the media, admits to wearing make-up as a man and claims that he is not acting as a woman. 'For me, make-up is an art form,' he told Marie Claire. As a boy, I'm still confident, and I'll always be a guy. With exposed skin and a full face, I can be confident.' The Twitter trolls, on the other hand, have been expressing their opinions. 'Dads, this is why you need to be there to raise your sons,' said blogger Matt Walsh, meaning that strong masculine role models, such as the guy in the 'Score' commercial, may guide their sons away from a destructive and emasculating obsession in beauty and make-up. 'Being a man isn't just about how tough or masculine you are, it's about caring for the ones you love,' Manny retorted. 'My father actually works for me and is SO PROUD of me,' he added.
The brand's attitude and language are all about masculine domination and self-confidence, and they are heavily reinforcing patriarchal tropes.

# data[].attributes.body
1960s vs modern advertising: there’s a large contrast between both because society has developed new cultural, societal and historical standards.

Stereotypical gender roles are less encouraged through media nowadays however some aspects of masculinity and femininity are still deeply rooted into advertisements, songs and films we consume. Patriarchy still influences the way we define ourselves and label others.

the preferred reading of most advertisements in the 1960’s would be to resonate with a certain message the product delivers like having confidence (the score ad) or being a good father figure (the watch ad). But the way women were presented in posters made people who weren’t the target audience uncomfortable: They started to question the ethics behind promoting materialism and excessive voyeurism in the media. The lack of representation, diversity in race and roles lead people to think that feeling sexualised/objectified is normal. And that white people being superior to others is normal.

Everything was designed to cater to the male gaze even when it came to presenting men but in recent years, brands have started to challenge these societal expectations and standards by starring all kinds of people in their ads.

# data[].attributes.headline
Reading Week 3 - Gendered Media/Intertextuality

# data[].attributes.subject
Reading Week 3 - Gendered Media/Intertextuality

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 2: Intertextuality in the Marvel Universe

https://aldaracademies-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/cchowdhary_alyasminaacademy_sch_ae/EUesN3akI8JBgsqzhQKftc8BuWoWVd3EMumqDRlW3yQPvQ?e=ZY2kWz

# data[].attributes.body
Gendered Media
One of the most harmful effects of media portrayals of women and men is that they push us to consider normal bodies and normal bodily functioning as disorders. It's natural to wish we weighed a little more or less, had stronger muscles, and never got acne or cramps. It is, therefore, neither fair nor healthy to see healthy, functional bodies as deviant and undesirable. However, this is precisely the negative self-image fostered by media depictions of both men and women. Sexual and erotic pictures are the single most prominent feature of advertising (Courtney & Whipple, 1983) because sex sells items (Muro, 1989). Furthermore, advertising is progressively objectifying males, which likely explains the growth in men's weight training and cosmetic surgery. PMS has not been a concern in the past, but it has recently been classified as a disease. When women were no longer needed in the workforce after WWII, attitudes shifted, and the term premenstrual tension was established to describe women as second-class workers. In 1964, there was only one article about PMS; in 1988-1989, there were a total of 425. Since selling PMS meant marketing their cures for the newly invented condition, drug corporations supported research and publicity. However, there was and continues to be no evidence to support the widely held belief that PMS is a serious problem affecting a considerable proportion of the female population. Regardless of the facts, the myth has spread, leaving many women and men believing that regular monthly changes are abnormal and that women are unfit for positions of leadership and control. Another effect of describing PMS as a serious illness that affects the majority of women is that it leads to the generalization of women as deviant and untrustworthy (Unger & Crawford, 1992), an image that reinforces long-held biases against women.

Intertextuality
The MCU films' billion-dollar success has proven that Feige and his partners are pleased the audience, and the outcome has been Marvel's growth into a Multimedia Universe. To acquire maximum geek-cred and to grasp all of the intertextual references given in all mediums, new and old fans must now keep up with TV series, short films, videogames, and movies. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was carefully linked in with Thor: The Dark World, while Daredevil, the first of Marvel's four new Netflix exclusive shows, will share at least one character with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Part-time viewers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the complicated interaction between formats, characters, and continuous plots. It will be fascinating to see whether this begins to alienate consumers who feel left out, or if casual fans can stay up without viewing everything Marvel produces.

# data[].attributes.body
Gendered Media

3 main themes:
1) women are underrepresented which falsely implies that men are the cultural standard and that women are unimportant and invisible.
2)men and women are portrayed in stereotypical ways that reflect and sustain socially endorsed views of gender.
3) depictions of relationships between men and women emphasize traditional roles and normalize violence against women.

1) Underrepresentation of women
- 3x as many white men as women in tv
- males outnumber females
- 10x more stories about men on the news, tempts us to believe that there are more men than women, men are the cultural standard
- minorities are less visible than women
- African Americans appear only as supporting roles in kids tv
- minorities features in stereotypes: black men are lazy, women are domineering and sex objects
- older people are underrepresented
- older women are less represented than men  because being young and beautiful is the standard for women.
- women make up only 5% of the media industry

2. Stereotypes
- men are active, adventurous, sexually aggressive etc.
- men are not gentle, in no way feminine, shown to be incompetent at housework
- women are sex objects, young, thin, beautiful, passive etc.
- women may be strong and successful only if they display common stereotypes as well, if they identity is linked to a man
- there is the 'bad' women and the 'good' women

3. relationship stereotypes:
- female dependence on males
- male dominance, female subservience
- the 1970's had a brief departure from this pattern as women were shown as more independent without being criticized
- media defines a very narrow range for womanhood
- 1. men's authority, women's incompetence, evident in children's classics
- male voice overs in commercials suggest that women depend on men to tell them what to do.
- the long standing dominant-submissive model for females was brought back in the 1980's: women do the laundry and are secretaries to men who own companies
- 2. women are caregivers and men are providers
- women's careers in media are given very little attention, they are predominantly shown doing traditional things.
- magazines aimed at women stress looking good and doing things to please others
- in newspapers, stories about men focus on work and their achievements, stories about women focus on their roles as wives, mothers and homemakers - women's professional activities typically dwell on traditional aspects
- 3. women as victims, men as aggressors

- medias images of men and women encourage us to perceive that normal bodies and physical functions are abnormal.
- PMS viewed as a disease, advertisers made money off of the created problem.
- menopause described negatively in media as abnormal, desolate, unfruitful. this is inaccurate.
- things like a healthy body weight, grey hair, facial lines and body hair have all been made unacceptable in society by media.
- heavy exposure to media violence within relationships tends to normalize it.

- 🤬 is extremely rare in cultures that value women and feminine qualities.
- 🤬 is most common in countries that have ideologies of male supremacy and dominance and a disrespect of women and nature.
- cultural values communicated to us constantly encourage us to believe that men are superior, men should dominate women, male aggression is acceptable as a means of attaining what is wanted, women are passive and should defer to men and women are sex objects.

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: Reggae: the sound that revolutionised Britain | Reggae | The Guardian

Reading 2: Ska story: the sound of angry young England - Chicago Reader

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
t was punk's "summer of hate", 1977, and the required pose was a sneer, a leather jacket and something hacked about - a spiky haircut, a ripped T-shirt, a sawn-off school tie. And, of course, no flares, the despised flag of hippiedom. But at the cold, concrete roots of Britain a very different aesthetic was also in the ascendant, one calling for an oversized tam, dreadlocks and a display of "the red, gold and green", the colours of Rastafari. Flares? Fine!

The two looks represented the different worlds inhabited by young white and black Britain, worlds which a year previously had been remote from each other but which by the summer of 1977 were unexpectedly and often uncomfortably rubbing shoulders. At Hackney town hall, under portraits of whiskery Victorian aldermen, I watched the Cimarons chant down Babylon while Generation X snarled their way through "Wild Youth". In Brixton, I gaped as the Slits, the acme of unruliness, shared a stage with Birmingham's Steel Pulse, the most militant of Britain's proliferating reggae bands.

More than just the " Punky Reggae Party" Bob Marley had playfully celebrated on disc that summer, these were gigs that signalled the birth of a new Britain, one in which the neofascist National Front was consigned to the margins and musical cross-pollination became the norm. Rock-reggae bands such as the Police, ska revivalists such as the Specials and home-grown reggae acts such as Janet Kay would soon occupy the charts. Further down the line would come UB40, Culture Club, Soul II Soul and then the current era in which, to quote Soul II Soul singer Caron Wheeler: "You can't distinguish between colour any more - it's just people."

These days, punk is to be found in the cultural academy, in lecture halls, art galleries and fashion history books. By contrast, British reggae remains half-forgotten and little praised, represented mainly by the Specials' "Ghost Town" as the default tune for any retrospective on the bleak, Thatcherite early 80s.

By way of correcting the imbalance comes Reggae Britannia, a BBC4 documentary in the vein of the channel's Soul Britannia and Folk Britannia, which follows Britain's romance with Jamaican music from "My Boy Lollipop", Millie Small's 1964 hit, through to the late 80s. Its broadcast is preceded by a Barbican concert featuring a selection of Jamaican and UK acts - Big Youth, Ali Campbell, Carroll Thompson and Ken Boothe among others.

Those 1977 shows, organised by a nascent Rock Against Racism, meant it had taken 29 years since the arrival of the Empire Windrush for black and white Britain to share the same stage. Preposterous though it now seems, it hadn't happened too often before. Jazz had long provided a cross-racial haven (black bandleaders such as Ken "Snakehips" Johnson were active as far back as the 1930s), but most often the only place to find the two communities mixing was in a soul club or at an Al Green or Stevie Wonder concert. As late as 1978, Joe Strummer would sing of being the only "(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais" at a reggae extravaganza (Joe exaggerated; there were at least six).

In reggae terms, it had taken the emergence of Bob Marley to effect the uneasy coalition of rock fans, black youth, lofty Rastas and proto-punks that confronted each other at his celebrated 1975 Lyceum shows. After Marley, reggae was taken seriously as music of substance and innovation, where previously it had been treated at best as a novelty or simply ridiculed.

The series of reggae hits that had made the UK's pop charts in the late 60s and early 70s seemed only to harden prejudice; Tony Blackburn, in his pomp as Radio 1's premier DJ, declared them "rubbish", despite the British public regularly sending the likes of Desmond Dekker's " Israelites" and "It Mek" into the Top 10. Catchy numbers such as the Upsetters' "Return of Django" and Dave and Ansel Collins's "Monkey Spanner" reflected reggae's popularity among skinheads (odd given the skins' racist tendencies), while other hits - Bob and Marcia's " Young, Gifted and Black" (originally a solemn Nina Simone song), Nicky Thomas's " Love of the Common People" - had jaunty orchestral arrangements added to the Jamaican originals ("stringsed up" was the saying) to sweeten them for export.

Though hits such as Bobby Bloom's "Montego Bay" were unashamed gimmicks, others, like Dekker's "Israelites", reflected the Jamaican ghetto experience. A surprising number became part of the fabric of British life, popular as run-out theme tunes for football clubs (notably Harry J's "The Liquidator") and advertising jingles.

Yet British reggae acts remained thin on the ground. Bands such as the Cimarons existed principally to supply backing for visiting Jamaican stars or were expected to provide a medley of soul hits rather than reggae. "You had to be more of a showband," recalls Dennis Bovell, who established Matumbi early in the 70s and who would become a groundbreaking figure in British reggae. "We'd play some rocksteady but mostly Otis Redding, James Brown and the like - soul music was considered the music of emancipation."

Matumbi found work at a variety of venues - American air force bases, chicken-in-a-basket supper clubs in places such as Huddersfield and Cannock - though black Britain, like Jamaica, preferred to keep up to speed with the latest releases via the "sound system" (disco) and the "blues dance" (a house party with pay bar). "A blues was the only place you could get a girl," says Bovell. "Reggae dancing was full embrace, and if you were young and living at home, that was your only chance to spend a night in someone's arms."

Sound systems had long played a pivotal role in Jamaican life, providing escape and a showcase for hot tunes, usually with added commentary from talk-over DJs such as Dennis Alcapone and Big Youth. "Sound systems were our BBC or CNN, a way to communicate with people on the street," says Big Youth in Reggae Britannia. In Britain, sound systems were almost the only conduit for reggae. "There was nothing on the radio," points out Bovell, who alternated his role in Matumbi with running London's Jah Sufferer system.

British sound systems, which drew cachet from having the latest Jamaican releases, were snooty about home-grown product. Bovell, exasperated at the exclusion of his music, eventually bought a "dinking" machine to knock out the centre of his records so he could pass them off as Jamaican imports.

For the sons and daughters of the Windrush generation, reggae became an underground code of defiance, part of the quest for selfhood. "We rejected the caution and restraint our parents had in a hostile racial environment," says poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. "We were the rebel generation - reggae afforded us our own identity."

Singer Brinsley Forde, who helped found Aswad in 1975, echoes the sentiment. "What we sang about was our experience in London. People were copying Jamaica but weren't telling their own story."

A key element of that story was police use of the hated "sus" laws, which allowed people to be picked up on "suspicion" of committing a crime, while hostility to the police was stoked by the deployment of phalanxes of cops to protect National Front marches through black areas.

A simmering atmosphere of distrust was brought to boiling point at the end of 1976's long hot summer, when the Notting Hill carnival turned into a battle between black youth and police. The confrontation would be played out in more extreme form in 1980 and 1981, as Brixton, Southall, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds all experienced incendiary riots, one result of which was the repeal of the sus laws.

The summer of 1976 brought another pivotal event, Eric Clapton's drunken rant on stage at Birmingham, in which he acclaimed Enoch Powell as the politician who would "stop Britain from becoming a black colony... the black wogs and coons and fucking Jamaicans don't belong here". From a man which had topped the US charts with a cover of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff", this was shocking stuff and inspired the formation of Rock Against Racism (RAR).

British reggae swiftly acquired a new militancy and ubiquity. Steel Pulse sang " Ku Klux Klan" with the Klan's white hoods on their heads. Linton Kwesi Johnson proclaimed it was " Dread Inna Inglan" and warned "get ready for war". The growing roster of home-grown acts - Misty in Roots, Reggae Regular, Black Slate - found exposure on RAR stages and, after John Peel's conversion from prog rock, on his Radio 1 show and its live sessions.

Aside from its social commentary, reggae became chic due to its sonic radicalism, with its dub, rap and special disco mixes picked up by rock and soul. "Reggae taught us about space, leaving gaps. It was such a relief after the strictness and minimalism of punk," says Viv Albertine, guitarist with the Slits, whose 1979 album, Cut, was produced by Dennis Bovell.

In the post-punk era, the Clash, the Members and the Ruts were other rock bands incorporating reggae into their sound, along with the Police, who deftly integrated reggae on hits 'Message in a Bottle" and "Walking on the Moon". "We plundered reggae mercilessly," acknowledges drummer Stewart Copeland on Reggae Britannia.

By the close of the decade, another strand of Brit reggae was in play; the 2 Tone ska revivalism of Coventry's Specials. Their nostalgia for the ska of the mod and skinhead era quickly blossomed into a ska-punk fusion. As Specials founder Jerry Dammers remarks: "We were the beginning of the imitation generation. We didn't know how to play Jamaican ska so we ended up creating something that never happened in the first place."

Together with the Selecter, the Beat, Madness and more, the 2 Tone bands straddled the fault lines of British racism, their multiracial line-ups attracting an audience that included sieg heiling skinheads intent on trashing their shows. It was a crazy, unsustainable scenario that helped capsize the Specials, though their swan song, "Ghost Town", became the defining hit of 1981.

The angst and confrontation of British reggae ebbed during the 80s - "The fun had gone out of the music," says Bovell - though by then it had melded into mainstream pop. Janet Kay's "Silly Games" reached No 2, a representative of sweet, home-grown lovers rock that found an echo in the catchy output of Culture Club with what singer Boy George describes as "reggae that wouldn't frighten white people". Some said the same of Birmingham's UB40 - "They cashed in on our hard work with a weaker, pastel version," opines Steel Pulse's Mykaell Riley - though the Brum troupe would prove world conquerors, popular even in Jamaica.

A few years later, the arrival of Soul II Soul and Massive Attack, collectives weaned on sound systems and punky reggae, rendered the old categories obsolete. Was their music reggae, funk, hip-hop, pop or something else? It was all and none of those things, but mostly it was just British.

The Reggae Britannia concert is at the Barbican, London on 5 February. Members of the Guardian and Observer's Extra scheme can save £5 off top-price stall seats. www.theguardian.com/extra.

Reggae Britannia, the documentary, will be broadcast on BBC4 at 9pm on 11 February, followed by film of the Barbican concert

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reggae: the sound that revolutionised Britain | Music

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Punk may have got all the headlines, but reggae proved vital in ending the rift between black and white teenagers and introducing cross-pollination to the charts. On the eve of a fascinating BBC documentary, Neil Spencer applauds the Jamaican export

# data[].attributes.body
Rock-reggae bands like the Police, ska revivalists like the Specials, and homegrown reggae talents like Janet Kay would quickly take over the charts. UB40, Culture Club, Soul II Soul, and then the current period, in which "you can't discriminate between color any longer - it's just people," as Soul II Soul vocalist Caron Wheeler put it.

Punk may now be found in lecture halls, art galleries, and fashion history books in the cultural university. British reggae, on the other hand, is mostly forgotten and underappreciated, with the Specials' "Ghost Town" serving as the default soundtrack for every grim, Thatcherite early 1980s reminiscence.

"Punk is a thing of the past. Forget about the new Mods marching to 'My Generation's' rhythm. Ska is the term in England in 1980." That's how David Fricke, a Rolling Stone reviewer, started his March 23, 1980, essay on ska, the newest music phenomenon to sweep the United Kingdom. A decade later, 2-Tone Records, the record company most famous for the ska revolution, has released The 2 Tone Story, a double CD that showcases the finest of the ska movement and left you wondering why the mesmerizing music never became the word in America.

The ska of the late 1970s and early 1980s was a resurrection and expansion of the "rude boy" ska craze that swept Jamaica in the early 1960s. As the island country gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, it was in the middle of a cultural renaissance, and ska, a fusion of Jamaica's local folk music, known as Mento, and American R & B, which could be heard on the radio from New Orleans late at night, reflected this. The mix had a jittery calypso beat and a strong dose of unpleasant jazz-tinged horns. The lyrics were largely lighthearted, although some, like the Skatalites' "Independent Anniversary Ska," alluded to the promise of self-government. By the mid-1960s, the original ska sound had evolved into a more controlled "rock-steady" sound, which eventually gave way to reggae.

# data[].attributes.headline
Reggae: The Sound that Revolutionised Britain 

# data[].attributes.subject
Reggae: The Sound that Revolutionised Britain 

# data[].attributes.body
- "Summer of Hate" in 1977

- 2 Looks, either Rastafarian or Hippy, each represented "different worlds inhabited by young white and black Britain. (a year before the summer of hate each one was to their own).

# data[].attributes.headline
Reggae: the sound that revolutionized Britain

# data[].attributes.subject
Reggae: the sound that revolutionized Britain

# data[].attributes.body
- reggae: music originating in Jamaica featuring a heavy bass and guitars, with close vocal harmonies
- ended the rift between black and white teenagers
- riots in Brixton, Southall, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds resulted in the recalling of the 'sus' laws
- 'rock against racism' formation after famous singer trash talked politicians and said racist and offensive stuff towards black people in the UK.
- reggae originated in Jamaica and was considered radical, the British used it and changed it up a bit to talk about their own problems.

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: https://theconversation.com/ghost-town-a-haunting-1981-protest-song-that-still-makes-sense-today-88733

Reading 2: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/04/the-100-greatest-uk-no-1s-no-2-the-specials-ghost-town

Reading 3: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-specials-jerry-dammers-ghost-town

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The cover of "Ghost town". Pop Sike

England, 1981. In some rural South West discos menace was in the air; no night complete without a fight, Skinheads attacking whoever riled them, flick knives at the ready. Tracks by Madness, The Beat and The Selecter were the soundtrack to these nights. These bands played ska music, a popular Jamaican genre from which reggae evolved.

But when "Ghost Town" by The Specials came on, everyone stopped.

Formed in 1977 and arguably the most influential band of the UK's 2 Tone Ska scene, "Ghost Town", a skewed ska oddity, was written by Jerry Dammers, The Specials' keyboardist and released in June 1981. It was their last song before splitting up and reforming as The Special AKA and stayed at the top of the UK charts for three weeks.

Odd, eerie song

It's an odd, eerie song, nodding to pop convention and sitting wilfully outside of it. It's included, in passing, in Dorian Lynskey's beautifully written book on protest songs, "33 Revolutions Per Minute", but unlike the band's "Free Nelson Mandela" does not merit its own chapter.

Perhaps because "Ghost Town" cannot be "placed". It's not explicitly against any one event. It does not exhort its listeners into any one particular political view. It is not part of any one social movement for change. It is, rather, a stealth protest song.

Starting with a Hammond organ's six ascending notes before a mournful flute solo, it paints a bleak aural and lyrical landscape. Written in E♭, more attuned to "mood music", with nods to cinematic soundtracks and music hall tradition, it reflects and engenders anxiety.

The whispered chorus of "This Town/ is coming like a Ghost town" is then heard, followed by front man Terry Hall's deadpan vocals lamenting how "all the clubs have been closed down" because there is "too much fighting on the dance floor".

One of the clubs referred to in the song was The Locarno in Coventry, the Midlands UK city where the 2 Tone record label started in the late 1970s.

2 Tone had emerged stylistically from the Mod and Punk subcultures and its musical roots and the people in it, audiences and bands, were both black and white. Ska and the related Jamaican Rocksteady were its musical foundations, sharpened further by punk attitude and anger. It was this anger that Dammers articulated in "Ghost Town", galvanised both what he had seen on tour around the UK in 1981 and what was happening in the band, which was riven by internal tensions.

England was hit by recession and away from rural Skinhead nights, riots were breaking out across its urban areas. Deprived, forgotten, run down and angry, these were places where young people, black and white, erupted. In these neglected parts of London, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool the young, the unemployed, and the disaffected fought pitch battles with the police.

"Ghost Town" was the mournful sound of these riots, a poetic protest. It articulates anger at a state structure, an economic system and an entrenched animosity towards the young, black, white and poor. It asks,

why must the youth fight against themselves.

In his book Lynskey argues that "like all great records about social collapse, it seems to both fear and relish calamity" and its ambiguity allows it to soundtrack more than the riots about which it was written. It is an angry elegy for lost opportunity, lost youth, an acid flavoured lament for what was and what could be.

The streets that The Specials conjure up in "Ghost Town" are inhabited by ghosts; dancing is a memory, silence reigns. The sounds of life, community, creativity are no longer, "bands don't play no more". In the song's short bridge section in the bright key of G♭ major, Hall asks us to,

remember the good old days/before the ghost town/ when we danced and sang/ and the music played ina de boom town".

And as Charles Dickens wrote in his "A Christmas Carol", ghosts are spectres not only of the past, but of the present and future too, traces of what was, is and might have been. "Ghost Town" is the haunting track of thousands of lost futures. And in 2011, when England erupted again and the cities burnt, "Ghost Town" was remembered and replayed.

Strange music video

Its audio-visual manifestation was also strange. The music video was directed by Barney Bubbles and filmed in the East End of London, Blackwell Tunnel and a before-hours City of London. Opening with upshots of brutalist grey tower blocks to the sound of those Hammond organ chords and flute, it seems as though there is no one in town but The Specials, who are all crowded into a 1962 Vauxhall Cresta, careering through the empty streets and lip syncing.

This in itself constitutes "eerie" if we use cultural critic Mark Fisher's work, "The Weird And The Eerie", to understand it. He wrote how,

The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where there should be nothing, or there is nothing present when there should be something.

Here, in a major capital city, where the streets should be teeming, there is no-one but The Specials, a group of young black and white men, from a depressed and demoralised Midlands town. They are in charge.

As if to further underline this, the camera was placed on the car bonnet so we see The Specials as if they are crashing into us. And when they all sing "yah, ya ya, ya, yaah, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya...", they seem like an insane Greek chorus, before Lynval Golding, the band's rhythm guitarist and vocalist, murmurs the last line "the people getting angry". The song fades out in dub reggae tradition, inconclusive, echoing.

Not a dance track

So what did those fight-ready Skinheads do in those small town discos when "Ghost Town" came on? Not moonstomping, not smooching. This was not a dance track. It wasn't the "romantic" one the DJ played at the end of the night.

When "Ghost Town" played, the Skinheads sang along with Terry Hall, smiled manically and screeched. They joined into to the "ghastly chorus" and became, for a few minutes, part of that army of spectres. Because protest sometimes has no words.

It's just a cry out against injustice, against closed off opportunities by those who have pulled the ladder up and robbed the young, the poor, the white and black of their songs and their dancing, their futures. Drive round an empty city at dawn. Look at the empty flats.

See the streets before the bankers get there and after the cleaning ladies have gone. And put young, poor, disadvantaged people in that car. See how "Ghost Town" makes sense. Now.
Protest music has made a serious comeback over the past five years. This article is the first in a series featuring Songs of Protest from across the world, genres and generations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Ghost Town': a haunting 1981 protest song that still makes sense today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
England, 1981. In some rural South West discos menace was in the air; no night complete without a fight, Skinheads attacking whoever riled them, flick knives at the ready. Tracks by Madness, The Beat and The Selecter were the soundtrack to these nights. These bands played ska music, a popular Jamaican genre from which reggae evolved.

# data[].attributes.body
Ghost Town” was the mournful sound of these riots, a poetic protest. It articulates anger at a state structure, an economic system and an entrenched animosity towards the young, black, white and poor.

Ghost Town was powered by despair and anger, both at the state of a country in which unemployment had risen by nearly a million in 12 months, and by 82% among ethnic minorities – “government leaving the youth on the shelf, no jobs to be found in this country” – and the state of the Specials (“Bands won’t play no more / too much fighting on the dancefloor”). The band fought so much during its recording that the studio engineer threatened to throw them out.

On 10 July, a second wave of rioting spread across the country: Brixton, Southall, Battersea, Dalston, Streatham and Walthamstow in London, Handsworth in Birmingham, Chapeltown in Leeds, Highfields in Leicester, and many other cities including Edinburgh, Luton, Sheffield, Portsmouth, Preston, Newcastle, Derby, Southampton, Nottingham, Wolverhampton, Stockport and Cardiff all reported “riots” of varying degrees.

# data[].attributes.body
- England 1981, violence in the bars and streets
- bands played ska music- where reggae evolved
- it is not explicitly against any one event, it is a stealth protest song
- mournful flute solo creates bleak lyrical landscape
- soundtrack reflects and engenders anxiety
- The Lorcano club was referred in the song where the 2-tone record label started
- riots breaking out across urban areas
- fights broke out between the unemployed and the police in neglected parts of London
- the song conveys the anger at the economic structure, the system and the animosity towards young, black, white and poor.
- the streets are implied to be inhabited by ghosts, dancing is a memory
- a haunting track of a thousand lost futures
- manic chanting/yelling connotes to the fact that protesting sometimes has no words, it is just a cry out against injustice
- they were a band born out of political and racial tension

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Reading 1: Representation in 'This Is America'

# data[].attributes.headline
Reading Week 6 - Representation of African American's in Music Videos

# data[].attributes.subject
Reading Week 6 - Representation of African American's in Music Videos

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 2: https://repository.unair.ac.id/102018/5/4.%20CHAPTER%20I.pdf

# data[].attributes.headline
Representation of African Americans in music videos 

# data[].attributes.subject
Representation of African Americans in music videos 

# data[].attributes.body
DNA and HUMBLE represent symbolic emotions from African Americans experience as victims of white supremacy while exploring their culture in a postmodern manner. Black textuality is adapted into media, especially Rap and Hip-Hop.

duality: a struggle of whether having a desire or being realistic in responding to surroundings (hobbes 1968)

black textuality: a cultural product which is written by african americans based on their experience in a racist society (tate 1998)

racial-ethnic identity: the quality of being part of a certain ethnicity which plays an important role for african americans (reitzes 1999)

sign: anything that can be interpreted (chandler 2007)

white supremacy: an ideology that white people of european descent should be dominant over people of other backgrounds (anti defamation league 2015)

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: https://media-studies.com/letter-to-the-free/

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: Hollywood and Chine

Reading 2: https://aldaracademies-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/cchowdhary_alyasminaacademy_sch_ae/EdQqkP--7vVBrVzVUcAWjSsBBrpT_WoHs9IJnIhz7jfVfg?e=dF9vLW

# data[].attributes.body
A song written for a documentary exploring the criminalization of African Americans; speaks out against a justice system that helps to perpetuate the terrible inequality endured by many African Americans.

Common is an advocate for criminal justice reform and is the founder of Imagine Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to “empowering communities and fighting injustice wherever it appears”. “Letter to the Free” is his rally call against racism and the different forms of slavery still being used in America.

Music video notes:
-Empty prison could signify the freedom Common is trying to achieve
-Row of houses and a wild garden could represent the promised land of freedom
-Performative music video that focuses on artists/musicians' performance on camera

Exam-style questions:

1. Explain how the codes and conventions of music videos have been used to construct viewpoints in the Letter to the Free Close Study Product.
-

2. Explain how values and ideologies are communicated by media language used in the Close Study Product Letter to the Free.
-

3. How useful is Paul Gilroy’s theory of representation in understanding the Close Study Product Ghost Town?
-

4. Explore how far the representation of issues in the Close Study Product Letter to the Free reflects its social and political context.
-

5. Explore the cultural and social significance of the Close Study Product Letter to the Free.

# data[].attributes.body
When slavery and involuntary servitude were abolished in America, the constitution was amended to allow the practice to continue for the "punishment of crime." A vagabond, for example, could be forced to labor without pay in some states since unemployment is unlawful. Surprisingly, some people were expelled from their jobs and homes after liberation. They were arrested and leased back to the white landowners since they had nowhere to reside.Common is an outspoken supporter of criminal justice reform and the founder of Imagine Justice, a non-profit dedicated to "empowering communities and combating injustice wherever it occurs." His rallying cry against racism and the various types of slavery still in use in America is "Letter to the Free."

The empty prison in the music video could represent Common's quest for freedom. The sixth shot shows a bizarre sight of a black monolith hovering in the middle of a recreation yard. It's perplexing and unexpected. "It signifies the limitless thing about blackness, and blackness can't be defined in time or space," Common said in an interview. The monolith returns outside a row of cottages and a wild garden in the final picture, maybe representing the promised land of freedom. "Letter to the Free" serves as both a historical remembrance and a promise of a "sweet country of liberty" in this way.

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: My film is bridging cultural divides. This gives me hope in such polarised times | Sarfraz Manzoor | The Guardian

Reading 2: Bruce Springsteen changed my life… and so did my best friend Amolak | Film | The Guardian

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
here is a polarisation in today's political culture that led me to seek solace in screenwriting, after almost 25 years as a journalist. I found the entrenched tribalism alienating and decided instead to explore the world of fiction and film. I thought I would be distracted from the question of our divided culture, but in fact I found potential clues for how to bridge the very divide I was fleeing from.

I have spent the last six weeks travelling across Britain and the US, promoting Blinded By the Light. The film, directed by Gurinder Chadha, is a fictionalised retelling of my memoir, Greetings from Bury Park. It tells what is ostensibly a very personal story. It is located in a specific time and place - Luton in 1987 - and it is about a teenage British Pakistani boy whose life feels constrained by his class, culture and community until he discovers the liberating power of the music of Bruce Springsteen. The film is uncompromising in its cultural specificity - and given its subject matter, one would assume it would mostly appeal to British Asians who lived through the 1980s, Bruce Springsteen fans, and in particular, Asian Bruce Springsteen fans who lived through the 1980s. What I had not appreciated was the power of storytelling to engender empathy.

The most common responses to the film were in the ways that audiences found personal connections to the story. I could not have predicted that Israeli women in Jerusalem, white teenage American boys in Omaha, Nebraska and older white women in Australia who had seen the film would all contact me on social media and thank me for telling their story. I had not expected to be approached, at screenings from Glasgow to Seattle, by people who seemingly had nothing in common with the protagonist but said they had connected emotionally with the story.

'I was deeply moved by This Is England even though I am not a young white English skinhead; by Annie Hall even though I am not a neurotic American-Jewish comedian.' Stephen Graham in This Is England (2006). Photograph: Film4/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Brendan in Chicago told me that while "we have very different backgrounds, I found myself reflecting about what it was like for me at that age - that feeling of being in a place where you feel you don't fit in but realising it's what has helped shape you, whether you like it or not". Beth in Missouri had a pithier summation: "Worlds apart but the same." In telling a very specific story, it turned out, I was actually telling a universal one.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised. After all, I was deeply moved and affected by This Is England, Wild Rose and Annie Hall, even though I am neither a young white English skinhead, a Scottish country-music-loving single mum, nor a neurotic middle-aged American-Jewish comedian.

Javed, the central character in my film, is a teenage British Pakistani Muslim. Blinded By the Light is being released at a time when that community is regularly demonised as the other - both Boris Johnson and Donald Trump have sought to gain political capital by mocking Muslims. I was apprehensive about whether a mainstream audience (white and non-Muslim) would be able to relate to the protagonist, yet it has been illuminating how much they have seen beyond religion and ethnicity and responded to the characters as sons, mothers and fathers - as human beings.

'Blinded By the Light is being released at a time when the British Pakistani community is regularly demonised as the 'other'.' Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy Stock Photo

It is, of course, also true that these are a self-selecting group of people who have chosen to buy a ticket for the film, just as people choose to read a particular paper or watch a specific news channel. So one could argue that the film is not changing anyone's mind, since only those who are disposed to watch it would be willing to spend the money. But when people engage with stories, they arguably do so with minds more open than when they engage with politics. When I asked a packed cinema of more than 700 people - overwhelmingly white filmgoers - in Traverse City, Michigan, how many had spent two hours in the company of a Pakistani Muslim family, not a single hand went up. "You just did," I told them.

The fact that so many people around the world who have seen Blinded By the Light have responded with empathy to characters apparently very different to themselves offers some hope in what can feel like hopeless times. It suggests that stories can reach places that journalism cannot. It makes me believe that perhaps it is just plausible that the next time a fear-stoking politician or an attention-seeking journalist tries to demonise all Muslims, those who have seen and been moved by my film will remember young Javed and his parents, Malik and Noor. And they will recall laughing and crying in the cinema.

In a time when politicians seem intent on defining us by our differences, my film may remind them that all of us are characters in a larger human story.

Sarfraz Manzoor is a journalist and screenwriter. Blinded By the Light, in cinemas now, is based on his 2007 memoir, Greetings from Bury Park

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
My film is bridging cultural divides. This gives me hope in such polarised times | Sarfraz Manzoor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
here is a polarisation in today's political culture that led me to seek solace in screenwriting, after almost 25 years as a journalist. I found the entrenched tribalism alienating and decided instead to explore the world of fiction and film.

# data[].attributes.body
Just as people choose to read a particular newspaper or watch a particular news channel, these are a self-selecting set of people who have chosen to buy a ticket for the film. As a result, one may claim that the film isn't altering anyone's perspective because only those who are prepared to pay to see it will do so. People, on the other hand, engage with stories with minds that are more open than they are with politics. When he asked a crowd of more than 700 people in Traverse City, Michigan — mostly white moviegoers – how many had spent two hours in the company of a Pakistani Muslim family, not a single hand went up.

Javed, the main character of this film, is a British Pakistani Muslim teenager. Blinded by the Light is being launched at a time when Muslims are routinely demonized as the other — both Boris Johnson and Donald Trump have mocked Muslims in order to garner political currency. The writers were unsure whether a mainstream audience (white and non-Muslim) would be able to relate to the protagonist, but it's been fascinating to watch how they've responded to the characters as sons, mothers, and fathers – as human beings.

Gurinder Chadha, who also directed Bend It Like Beckham, directed Blinded by the Light, a rites of passage comedy drama. It is set in 1987 and revisits Sanfraz's teenage years, with most of it based on true occurrences. One unexpected side effect of this is that his adolescent friendship with Amolak has been immortalized - something neither of them could have envisaged in their wildest imaginations.

# data[].attributes.body
In the early days of Hollywood, every film was a possible liability for its producers and distributors. Most films were stand-alone; a one-off enterprise that had to capture the audience’s imagination or risk becoming a rotten tomato. The successful ones took audiences on a rollercoaster of emotion, had mesmerising narratives or followed the arcs of compelling characters, such as Rick Blaine in Casablanca or Forrest Gump in the eponymous film.
The international film market is a market that continues to grow, particularly in China and Russia, and as a result, the films we watch today are developed particularly for these markets. China is now considered the world’s second-largest theatrical release market with the expectation that it will soon become the largest. China now has more cinema screens than the US; an average of 27 new cinema screens was built per day in 2016 alone.
The Chinese audience want familiar brands, 3D and Special FX. They want the spectacle that only the American film studio can deliver with its big budgets and investment in post-production CGI. A good example is Transformers: Age of Extinction. This is a film that was co-produced by Paramount Pictures and China Movie Channel, making it the most high-profile example of Hollywood’s developing relationship with China to date. The film was criticised by reviewers for its weak plotline; however, it was the only film in 2014 to make over 1 billion dollars worldwide at the box office and this was the result of its popularity in China. If you’ve watched the film, you may have noticed that scenes were littered with Chinese product placement; the mise-en-scène was narratives or followed the arcs of compelling characters.
When the digital technology boom occurred, the DVD – died a quick death. Film studios all over Hollywood saw their profits fall and all looked desperately for new ways to be financially viable. Chinese cinemas will only screen 34 imported films each year so competition for the market is tough

# data[].attributes.body
Technology's rapid advancement has had a significant impact on the creative and cultural industries. The Internet has changed the corporate landscape in every industry, and it is unlikely to slow down in the near future, resulting in the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. For the film industry, the Internet has offered both opportunities and obstacles; also, new and increasingly sophisticated technology (such as home theater systems) are putting pressure on independent cinemas.

Dynamic digital expansion is gradually becoming a prominent issue in discussions about the future of film distribution among academics and industry professionals. In recent years, there has been a surge in interest in film distribution, with most research focusing on exhibition, moviegoing, cultural geography, and audience studies.

Given VOD's ability to satisfy consumer convenience, it has influenced judgments about the time of releases (Ulin, 2009). VOD models are currently the most popular digital option, with an ever-growing user base (Smits, 2017). In Poland, for example, internet viewers increased from 67.9% in 2009 to 78.2% in 2014. (Franek, 2015). In other parts of Europe, Re's (2018) case study of the Italian film market attributes recent growth to the entrance of Netflix. While income from VOD models are expanding in the UK, revenues from film on television and theatrical distribution are also increasing. Theatrical revenues were the most important component of the UK film value chain in 2016. (British Film Institute, 2017).

# data[].attributes.body
- technology has had a massive impact on the creative and cultural industries, pushing it into a digital sphere.
- disruption: redesigning a distribution strategy to survive a change in environment.
- emergence of VOD, the most popular digital solution, convenient and free (from pirate websites)
- VOD falls into 3 main categories: Subscription VOD (most popular, eg. Netflix), Transactional VOD, Ad-based VOD.

Advantages of the independent film market:
-more time to spare for each title
-bigger willingness to cooperate with producers
-more open minded approach toward non-commercial values of the film

- consumers have gone from 'push' to 'pull', people are now responsible for creating their own digital watching experience.

# data[].attributes.body
Jenkins' theoretical writing reveals a genuine mourning for the loss of traditional culture, particularly its participatory elements. Jenkins admires folk art for its ability to bring society together in acts of creative loveliness, activities that frequently convey some kind of political message - because folk culture gives us, the regular folk, a voice to critique the order of things. Unfortunately, Jenkins believes that "new mass media signalled the end of essential folk cultural traditions that flourished in nineteenth-century America." Take careful note of Jenkins' fairly emotional use of the word 'doom' in this statement, as well as the way he contrasts current mass media with the 'vital' life-giving aspects of nineteenth-century American folksiness. Jenkin's assessment of the expansion of mass media in the twentieth century and its influence on folk culture is analogous. Online fandoms allow audience engagement to be shared in real time across a worldwide network. Jenkins contends that this connectedness is powerful, allowing media users to collaborate in coordinated or communal actions of resistance. According to Jenkins, certain viewers can withstand the hypnotic, creativity-sapping effects of mass media. Furthermore, certain audiences responded to the television revolution with the same creative impulses seen in the American folk culture. Instead of banjos, viewers utilized the television shows they saw as 'creative scaffolding,' adopting the characters and narratives they discovered in the media to craft their own stories. In this sense, audiences utilized fanfiction to alter mass media tales to their own particular tastes in the same way that pre-mass media folk performers changed their own versions of well-known tunes.
Jenkins finds that fanfiction gives tangible proof of how larger audiences interpret cultural items.

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1: https://www.gale.com/intl/essays/adrian-bingham-daily-mail-public-life

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Daily Mail was never content to be a passive spectator, merely reporting the activities of public life. From its launch, Northcliffe saw the paper as one that would make its views known and try to influence national decision-making processes: it would campaign for particular causes, champion individuals and organizations, expose poor performance or policy. This was justified on the basis that the paper was an important channel of public opinion - indeed, one that was arguably more responsive than politicians who were elected only every five years. 'Every extension of the franchise renders more powerful the newspaper and less powerful the politician', argued Northcliffe in 1903 (although this opinion didn't translate into his supporting votes for women). 1 In particular, the presented itself as the representative of the respectable and hard-working middle-classes. We can identify three main themes in the Mail's interventions in public life: a consistent opposition to socialist or left-wing politics; support for a strong and internationally respected Britain, Empire and Commonwealth; and a social and cultural defence of 'family values', decency, and community spirit.

Party Politics
Northcliffe was essentially a Tory populist, while always seeking to retain some independence from party labels and structures. The Daily Mail tended to defend the political status quo, standing for a strong nation, monarchy and empire, and resisting radical reforms that would threaten established institutions or undermine capitalism. At the same time, it was frequently critical of the Conservative party, especially when it did not seem to be meeting the aspirations of the expanding middle classes that the Mail viewed as its key constituency.

Early twentieth-century politics was dominated by debates about the role of the state - how it should intervene in the economy, what responsibilities it had to its citizens, how it should tackle poverty. While the Liberal press supported the introduction of welfare measures (such as old age pensions and unemployment insurance), the argued that the state's growth needed to be controlled for fear of extinguishing the competitive individualism that was supposedly the source of national greatness during the Victorian period. It articulated the anxieties of the propertied classes about a growing tax burden and the increasing organization of working-class trade unions, and suggested that only the Conservative party could be trusted to run the economy. The Mail fiercely opposed Lloyd George's 'People's Budget' of 1909, which was designed to raise taxation on the wealthy to pay for welfare measures, describing it as an 'audacious attempt to force socialism on the country without consulting the people.' 2

If the Mail perceived reformist Liberals like Lloyd George as being politically dangerous, the fledgling Labour Party, committed to a fundamental overhaul of capitalism, potentially posed a far greater threat. The paper repeatedly portrayed the party as the tool of jealous and mean-spirited trade unions pursuing their own goals at the expense of the rest of society - a position from which it rarely deviated for the rest of the century. The Daily Mail's first detailed piece on the Labour party in 1906 suggested that Labour's policies 'must of necessity conflict with the organization of industrial enterprise' and would give the state an 'insane' power through 'an extension of the most evil features of the present system'. ³ By 1910 the paper was highlighting Labour's 'campaign of class hatred and plunder'. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 only intensified fears of the 'Red Peril', and the Mail did much to feed these anxieties, especially when Rothermere, Northcliffe's brother, became proprietor after Northcliffe's death in 1922. The high point of the socialist scare came days before the 1924 General Election, when the Daily Mail published the notorious 'Zinoviev letter' under the sensational headline 'Civil War Plot by Socialist Masters'. This forged letter, purporting to be from Comintern chief Grigory Zinoviev to the Communist Party of Great Britain, offered financial backing for revolutionary activity; the fact that MacDonald's Labour Government had not taken any action to counter this unwelcome foreign intervention indicated, in the Mail's eyes, that Labour were beholden to the Communists. 4 This dramatic revelation, the culmination of weeks of stories attempting to associate Labour with extremism, helped to produce the highest voter turnout at a general election in the inter-war period, and, although the Labour vote actually increased, the fears of socialism encouraged by the Mail may have driven some former Liberal voters into the arms of the Conservatives. The result was a crushing majority for Stanley Baldwin's Conservatives.

Rothermere was soon disillusioned by Baldwin's 'semi-socialist' administration, however, and lacking Northcliffe's attachment to the political mainstream, he increasingly cast admiring eyes at Benito Mussolini, Italy's Fascist leader. An article penned by Rothermere in May 1927 lauded Mussolini as 'The Leader Who Saved Italy's Soul', while less than a year later Rothermere announced that he was 'the greatest figure of our age', adding that he was 'proud of the fact that the Daily Mail was the first newspaper in England, and in the world outside Italy, to give the public a right estimate of the soundness of his work'. 5 After the Labour party's victory in the 1929 election, Rothermere believed that he had the power to push the Conservatives in a new direction. He assured Beaverbrook, the proprietor of the Daily Express, that 'You and I have the situation entirely in our hands. Without our active support, there is not the remotest chance of the ex-Premier [Baldwin] and his group of intimates returning to office.' ⁶ The Mail joined the Express in a high-profile 'Empire Free Trade' campaign: this was an attempt to cure Britain's political and economic ills by strengthening the ties of empire, most notably by creating a tariff wall around the British dominions and colonies to encourage greater trade within. The papers formed the United Empire Party and started running candidates against the Conservatives in by-elections. This was the most direct challenge yet posed by the press barons and their popular papers to the political system, and in the spring of 1931, it seemed that Baldwin was at risk of being toppled from the Conservative Party leadership. He survived only by focusing disquiet on the undemocratic ambition of the press barons themselves, delivering in March 1931 the famous lines, penned by his cousin, Rudyard Kipling, that Beaverbrook and Rothermere were seeking 'power without responsibility - the prerogative of the harlot down the ages'. The speech was enough to derail the Empire Free Trade bandwagon, and marked the end of the most hubristic ambitions of the press barons.

The increasingly gloomy Rothermere responded by taking the Mail further out of the political mainstream. On 19 October 1933, the paper published an exclusive, and sympathetic, interview that the journalist G Ward Price had conducted with Adolf Hitler. In 1934, Rothermere declared 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts' and called on the British public to support Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists (BUF; describing Italy and Germany as 'beyond all doubt the best-governed nations in Europe today'). ⁷ While open propagandizing for the BUF lasted only six months before differences of opinion forced a split, Rothermere and the Mail did little to conceal their continued approval of Hitler and Mussolini's domestic policies. ⁸ The Mail's idiosyncratic politics were becoming less appealing to the mainstream public, and its circulation stagnated while that of its moderate Conservative competitor, the Daily Express, rocketed.

After Rothermere's death in 1940, the settled into a quieter political role as a consistent, but critical, supporter of the Conservatives. Rothermere's son, Esmond, had been Chairman of Associated Newspapers since 1932 and now took full control of the paper, but he lacked the journalistic flair and political dynamism needed to recapture the glory years of Northcliffe. Frustrated by the Mail's failure to keep pace with the Express, the second Viscount Rothermere kept replacing the editor, but this high turnover just made it harder for the paper to develop a distinctive voice. ⁹ It was under the editorship of David English from 1971 that the Mail started to reassert itself on the political stage. The paper became a committed supporter of Thatcher, vigorously attacking Labour and the trade unions during the 1979 election campaign. On 24 April 1979, under the front page headline' Labour's Dirty Dozen', the paper exposed the '12 Big Lies' the party was using to try to discredit the Conservatives: many of these 'lies' - such as the claim that Margaret Thatcher would double VAT - were subsequently shown to be pretty close to the truth. ¹⁰ During the 1983 election campaign, the paper was so partisan in its support for Thatcher that the journalists' union chapel requested that other parties be given fairer coverage. ¹¹ After Thatcher was deposed in 1990, the Mail's support for the Conservatives became more muted, but despite the attempts of Tony Blair's New Labour to woo the paper - and indeed the appearance of the third Lord Rothermere on the Labour benches of the House of Lords in 1997 - it remained faithful to its right-wing traditions.

Britain and the World
One of the most characteristic features of the early Daily Mail was its support for British imperial power. Kennedy Jones, Northcliffe's right-hand man when establishing the paper, recalled how they 'discovered at once an abounding desire for knowledge on all matters affecting the Empire. We realized that one of the greatest forces, almost untapped, at the disposal of the Press was the depth and volume of public interest in Imperial questions.' ¹² The paper accordingly declared itself 'the embodiment and the mouthpiece of the Imperial idea'. ¹³ Patriotic coverage of the Boer war took the Mail's circulation above 1 million copies for the first time, and Jones encouraged the paper to devote 'at least double the amount' of space previously thought necessary to record colonial events and the courageous exploits of British pioneers. ¹⁴ In November 1904, the paper established a weekly Overseas Edition of the Mail to 'strengthen the bonds of empire'; it also organized an Overseas Club pledged to defend the 'greatest Empire in the world'. ¹⁵ Able-bodied men were encouraged to learn how to bear arms; the final lines of the club's motto implored members to 'Pray God our greatness may not fail through craven fears of being great.' ¹⁶ Before 1914, the paper frequently warned of the growing menace of Germany and led the campaign for an expansion of Britain's naval strength.

Once war broke out, Northcliffe's intense patriotism and restless energy saw the Mail constantly pushing Britain's leaders to prosecute the war more vigorously and effectively (see ' Daily Mail and the First World War'). Having defeated Germany, the Mail argued that the best way of avoiding further conflict was to preserve the Empire's armed capability while avoiding unnecessary extra entanglements. International institutions, such as the newly-formed League of Nations, were viewed with considerable scepticism. This was because patriotic feeling could only be mobilized for the purposes of Empire: 'no sane youth burns to guarantee a system which would throw British manhood into the trenches to safeguard San Salvador or some other League member whose frontiers only school teachers know'. ¹⁷ National strength was deemed far more important, and in 1935 the Mail established and publicized a National League of Airmen, to encourage 'a rapid advancement in our air force strength'. ¹⁸ The was a firm supporter of Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing Hitler's Germany in the late 1930s, but always on the basis of continuing to build up British military capacity at the same time. Ultimately war could not be avoided, and the Mail threw itself behind the Churchill administration with its usual patriotism. Herbert Mason's front-page photograph of St Paul's rising unscathed from another night of German aerial bombardment became one of the iconic images of the war. ¹⁹

After 1945, the was forced to accept Britain's declining international role and the end of Empire. Nevertheless, it consistently supported the military interventions that British governments deemed necessary: at Suez in 1956, in the Falklands in 1982, in Iraq in 1990 and 2003. The focus of its campaigning increasingly turned to Britain's relationship with Europe. Despite supporting the entry into the European Common Market in 1973, the paper became increasingly doubtful of the benefits of closer integration, and highlighted the dangers of ceding power to bureaucratic and unresponsive European institutions. The Mail labelled the 1997 General Election a 'Battle for Britain', and argued that 'nothing less is at stake than the freedom of Britain as a self-governing nation'. It feared that the Labour Party's enthusiasm for a federal Europe would encourage it to 'abolish the pound' and join the single currency; it argued that the Conservatives 'will more vigorously defend Britain's interests against Brussels'. ²⁰ The paper's passion on this issue remains undimmed, and it continues to be one of the most influential voices of Euroscepticism.

Society and Culture
Northcliffe's insistence that the Daily Mail encompass all aspects of life, rather than just the elevated business of politics and international affairs, ensured that the paper made a broad range of interventions in British social and cultural life. Some of these were light-hearted stunts designed to attract publicity and entertain readers, such as the competition to design a new hat in 1920, the search for the Loch Ness Monster in the 1930s, and Ralph Izzard's hunt for the Yeti in the early 1950s. (Photographs of 'Nessie', and a possible Yeti footprint, were joyfully printed on the front page.) Other campaigns, such as the promotion of wholemeal bread in 1911, had more serious intent. One of the most important of these was the publicity given to one of the twentieth century's most notable inventions: the aeroplane. Immediately captivated by the 'aerial motor' car, in 1906 Northcliffe offered a £1,000 prize for the first person to fly across the English Channel, and £10,000 for a completed flight from London to Manchester. He was delighted to award both within five years, and continued to invest heavily in publicizing and sponsoring the latest innovations in aeroplane technology. 21

In more recent years, the campaigned vigorously to keep the case of Stephen Lawrence, a black British teenager killed in a racist attack in South London in 1993, in the public eye. Despite the Crown Prosecution Service's inability to bring charges, and the failure of a private prosecution, the paper on 14 February 1997 boldly accused the five suspects on its front page with the headline 'Murderers: The accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us'. The Mail's stance was vindicated in January 2012 when two of the suspects were convicted of the murder.

Amid the varying targets of its diverse campaigns, the Mail has consistently supported what it perceives to be the moral and cultural preoccupations of the respectable middle classes. It has defended marriage and 'family values' against the threats of 'permissiveness' and moral 'relativism'; it has argued for a tax and welfare system that rewards hard work and saving, and it has robustly criticized 'scroungers' and 'immigrants' who take advantage of the system. When it has been under the direction of proprietors and editors in sympathy with those values, and with the journalistic ability to communicate them forcefully to its target audience - that is to say, during the Northcliffe years, and then in recent decades under David English and Paul Dacre - the paper has proven itself to be an unrivalled voice of 'middle England'.
ENDNOTES:
¹ S. Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, Volume 2, The Twentieth Century (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984), p. 12.

² Daily Mail, November 1909, cited in J. Lee Thompson, Northcliffe, Press Baron in Politics 1865-1922 (London: John Murray, 2000), p. 180.

³ Daily Mail, 17-18 January 1906, cited in James Thomas, Popular Newspapers, the Labour Party and British Politics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), p.8

⁴ Daily Mail, 25 October 1924, p.9.

⁵ Daily Mail, 2 May 1927, p. 10; 28 March 1928 p. 10.

⁶ House of Lords Record Office, Beaverbrook Papers, C/284a, Rothermere to Beaverbrook, 5 July 1929.

⁷ Daily Mail, 15 January 1934, p.10

⁸ Rothermere and Mosley's public exchange of letters (printed in the Daily Mail 14 July 1934) signalled the end of the relationship: see M. Pugh, 'The British Union of Fascists and the Olympia Debate', Historical Journal, 41/2 (1998), pp. 529-42.

⁹ S. J. Taylor, The Reluctant Press Lord: Esmond Rothermere and the Daily Mail (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1998).

¹⁰ R. Greenslade, Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits from Propaganda (London: Macmillan, 2003), 362-3.

¹¹ Ibid, p. 452.

¹² K. Jones, Fleet Street and Downing Street (London: Hutchinson, 1920), p. 146.

13 Daily Mail, 4 May 1900, cited in Thompson, Northcliffe, p. 74.

¹⁴ Jones, Fleet Street, p. 147.

¹⁵ Thompson, Northcliffe, p. 118.

¹⁶ British Library, Northcliffe Papers, Add. MS 62222, Fos. 91-92, circulars from Evelyn Wrench, 27 Aug. 1910, Nov. 1910.

¹⁷ Daily Mail, 15 December 1936, 10.

¹⁸ P. Addison, 'Lord Rothermere and British Foreign Policy', in C. Cook and G. Peele, (eds.), The Politics of Reappraisal (London: Macmillan, 1975), 200-1; Taylor, The Great Outsiders, 309.

¹⁹ Daily Mail, 31 December 1940, p. 1.

²⁰ Margaret Scammell and Martin Harrop, 'The Press', in David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1997 (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1997), p.168.

²¹ S. J. Taylor, The Great Outsiders: Northcliffe, Rothermere and the Daily Mail (London: Phoenix, 1996), pp. 119-127.
CITATION: Bingham, Adrian: "The Voice of 'Middle England'? The Daily Mail and Public Life." Daily Mail Historical Archive 1896-2004. Cengage Learning, 2013

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Daily Mail and Public Life | Adrian Bingham

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Daily Mail was never content to be a passive spectator, merely reporting the activities of public life. From its launch, Northcliffe saw the paper as one that would make its views known and try to influence national decision-making processes: it would campaign for particular causes, champion individuals and organizations, expose poor performance or policy.

# data[].attributes.body
Reading 1 - From Local Press to National Regulator - A Journalist’s Tale.docx

# data[].attributes.body
Northcliffe envisioned the publication from the start as one that would voice its opinions and attempt to influence national decision–making processes: it would campaign for specific causes, champion persons and organisations, and expose poor performance or policy. This was defended on the grounds that the publication was a vital medium of popular opinion, possibly more responsive than politicians who were only elected every five years. 'Every enlargement of the franchise becomes more powerful the newspaper and less powerful the politician,' Northcliffe stated in 1903 (albeit this did not convert into his support for women's suffrage).

Early twentieth–century politics was dominated by discussions about the role of the state — how it should engage in the economy, what obligations it owed to its citizens, and how it should deal with poverty. While the Liberal press advocated for the implementation of welfare measures (such as old-age pensions and unemployment insurance), the Mail argued that the state's growth should be limited in order to avoid extinguishing the competitive individualism that was supposedly the source of national greatness during the Victorian era.

# data[].attributes.body
- Northcliffe was a Tory populist, who always seemed to retain independence from party labels and structures
- In the early 20th century, politics mostly talked about how the country should be controlled
- The liberal press supported introducing welfare measures, this was supposedly what made the nation so great
- 'People of Budget' was introduced by Lloyd George in 1909, which was made to raise tax for the rich in order to pay for welfare measures which The Mail opposed, calling it  ‘audacious attempt to force socialism on the country without consulting the people.’
- The Daily Mail's first detailed piece on the Labour Party in 1906 suggested that the Labour party's intentions ‘must of necessity conflict with the organization of industrial enterprise’ and would give the state an ‘insane’ power through ‘an extension of the most evil features of the present system’.
- The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 boosted fears of the 'Red Peril' and the Mail's publications only added to that
-

# data[].attributes.body
The most serious single issue during the hacking scandal is that something unlawful was going on that should not have been going on and was not dealt with by the police, and the ensuing measures have been excessive. Far too many newspapers and magazines had become entangled in a regulatory framework that they should not have. A small segment of the press was behaving in an inappropriate manner, but it should have been dealt with legally.

A complaint must be addressed by a newspaper within 28 days. If the complaint is not addressed, the complainant may take it to the IPSO Complaints Committee, which will determine if the Editor's Code of Practice was violated. If it has, the Committee can insist on revisions and have them put on a specific page.

# data[].attributes.body
Semiotics
The deeper meaning behind and what is associated with certain words.
An example could be an inside joke between a group of friends and how they've taken something and created and agreed upon a new meaning that only that group understands.

Roland Barthes- Myths:

Ideas are created/introduced and ‘naturalised’ before finally being widely accepted.

A signifier is the word/object that we see directly while the signifier is what we usually associate with that word/object

Barthes' 5 Narrative Codes:
-Hermeneutic/'enigma' code: a mysterious/unexplained occurrence in a text that leaves the viewer/reader with questions that need to be answered.
-Proairetic/'action' code: something happening which suggests what will happen next,  sequential elements in a text that create meaning behind the actions.
-Semantic code: How certain elements of a text can carry deeper meaning
-Symbolic code: Describes anything that has a symbolic meaning
-Cultural Code: Referring to how something could mean one thing in one particular setting and something else in another depending on the context.