Media exam preparation

Facebook being sold

- 82million shares traded in first 30 seconds on market

- Mark Zuckerberg's stake is valued at $19.1billion

- Critics have said $38 share price is too high - and it is FOUR times bigger than Google's $25bn when it  launched as a public company in 2004

saudi Arabia conflict 

Saudi Arabia agrees to allow its women athletes to compete in the Olympics for the first time, against the background of speculation that the entire Saudi team might be disqualified on grounds of gender discrimination. 2012

Paralympics and olympics 

Olympics played on bbc which is a public funded channel, paralympics played on channel 4 which is a commercially funded program. Opening ceremony was done by Danny boyle who created films like slumdog millionaire 

opening ceremory wanted to be good to show they've over come the ressission

Paralympics headlines

'Paralympics 2012: These Games could be the greatest ever'

Viral marketing 

The Harlem Shake is an Internet meme in the form of a video in which a group of people perform a comedy sketch accompanied by a short excerpt from the song "Harlem Shake". As a meme, the video was replicated by many people, using the same concept, and this rapidly led to it becoming viral in early February 2013,^[2] with thousands of "Harlem Shake" videos being made and uploaded to YouTubeevery day at the height of its popularity.

The form of the meme was established in a video uploaded on February 2 by five teenagers from Queensland, Australia known on YouTube as The Sunny Coast Skate.The video started a viral trend of people uploading their own "Harlem Shake" videos to YouTube.The teenagers' video was a follow-up to a video by a YouTube comedy vlogger named Filthy Frank which featured a section where several costumed people danced to the song "Harlem Shake" by Baauer.

Using social networking sites to their advantage, for example bgt use twitter with a hashtag trend #bgt allows the audience to express their views

Harry Brown Film producers

Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation (or Lionsgate is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 3, 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. As of 2012, it is the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America and the seventh most profitable movie studio.

https://twitter.com/lionsgatemovies

146,864 followers on twitter. Allows people to tweet, retweet, share, etc on their twitter page. Allows freedom of speech with the audience as they can express their views on the film. Also allows the company to post their latest trailers to the fans.

Media theories revision

Uses & Grats

Finding out about events, satisfying curiosity. Finding out personal identity, entertainment e.g. escaping, diversion from problems, relaxing, emotional release.

Narrative

The media text tells a story, from print, posters, adverts, news articles, films, television.

Todarov

Narrative has a structured pattern, firstly starts of with everything being ok then a problem occurs, and then finally a new and slightly altered state resulting from conflict. Usually things end on a happy ending.

The Proalretic code

This code builds up tension, referring to any other action or event that indicates something else is going to happen, and which hence gets the reader guessing as to what will happen next.

The hermenautic code

This refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the reader. The purpose of the author in this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enlgma, until the final scenes when all is revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closeure is achieved #noloosends

These two codes work together as a pair to develop the story's tension and keep the reader interested.

Semiotics

Semiotics the study of the language of signs.

Realism

Media texts have to appear to be real in order for the audience to accept them .

Post Modernism

The layering of old ideas with new ideas, from mulitple sources to create something new again.

Representation

How a person, place, object is represented

http://www.slideshare.net/mccabekat/media-studies-theory-for-as-and-a2

Effects of gaming on teenagers

Recently many violent acts have been committed and the media have blamed the violence in the gaming industry. Moral panics ensued after Tyrone Spellman; aged 27 was convicted of a third-degree murder, killing his 17 month old daughter as he was raging over a broken Xbox. Another example is Kendall Anderson, aged 16 who killed his mother by hitting her violently 20 times simply because she took his PlayStation away from him. (1) The gaming industry has been on the increase for years now; the U.S alone makes around 10.1 billion us dollars a year. Because of the mass amount of money made, the video industry is here to stay;

People play games in order to escape from reality. Call of Duty MW2 game was developed by a company called Infinity Ward. Legally the game is aimed at people from the age of 18 above, due to Licensing laws. This is the game contains violent scenes which aren’t fit for younger people. But this isn't the case when it comes to Call of Duty games. This game was a very successful game, within the first 24 hours is sold approximately 4.7 million copies, (2) as the game is rated an 18. Audiences play games for other reasons as well, such as the competition

However the evidence is increasing rapidly. It is important to consider whether the cultivation/culmination theory applies to the gaming industry. Does gaming cause people to turn violent? This theory asks if years and years of watching a female in soaps are mistreated, would we be more accepted to it happening in real life? However this theory is yet to have any concrete proof, that the media texts can change ones behaviours. This theory can be split into two parts, firstly the media exposing violence towards children, causing them to be more tolerant towards them. The second part being the media causing them mentally to be violent towards others and this would be seemed as normal considering it goes unpunished in media text. W.Belson conducted research with males between the ages of 12 to 17, to see how violent they are. He discovered that “Children who tend to watch violent TV programs do become more violent themselves to some extent, largely because violence comes to be seen as a legitimate problem solving device for them.” A lot of the time surveys show that violent people enjoy violent programmes. So how does this relate to my case studies? Firstly there’s been many cases of violent out streaks from gaming, a famous example of this happen on the 11^th February 2009 a multi-million dollar lawsuit was filed in Alabama against the game makers, people claimed that the months of playing the game led a teenager to go on a rampage, killing three men two of which were police officers. Grand Theft Auto is a game which allows you to decapitate police officers, kill them with a sniper, a chainsaw, and even set them on fire. And now the game is at the centre of a civil lawsuit involving the murders of the three men, the murders happened in a small town of Fayette, Ala. The boy who committed the crime was only 18 years old. He was known as Devin Moore, he had played the game for days on end for months. The game industry gave him a cranial menu that popped up in the blink of an eye, in the police station. The menu offered him a split second decision, to kill the officers, shoot them in the end and then flee in a police car. Just as the game trained him to do so. Everyone who was involved in the scene remember these famous words said by Moore, ‘Life is like a video game. Everybody’s got to die some time’.

Digital media have, in many ways, changed how we consume media products.” Who do you think benefits most – audiences or producers?

Changes in the media today benefits both the audience and the producer. Firstly starting with the audience, now that we can access media a lot easier compared to past times the audience is getting more and more involved, and the amount of viewers increase massively. In the past, films used to be released in the cinema and then released on DVD. This has changed massively over the past years, however the old methods are still around. But now days, after the cinema release the films are produced on blu-ray dvd. This means the video quality is the best it can be, so it matches the cinema experience. They also release extras on the DVDs, these can include games, behind the scenes, meeting the characters and so on. So thanks to blu-ray, we no longer have to visit the cinema to watch the film in high quality, we can simply watch it from the comfort of our own homes as many times as we wish. Film industry are now starting to release their films on services such as Netflix, Netflix charges the user £6 a month and this allows them to watch as many films as they wish. However, they have to sign up to a 12 month contract with them to do so. You can watch these films from more than just a TV, you can watch films from android phones, game consoles, computers and many more. This is the power of modern technology today. Next moving on the the producers, thanks to media they can access a much wider audience. For example, with my case study Attack The Block, they've created their own YouTube page. On there is behind the scenes footage, meet the characters, etc. It allows you to interact with the producers as well, as you can leave comments, like the video, dislike the video, and finally share the video. However, thanks to the development in the digital media industry, film industries are losing out massively thanks to illegal film downloading. It means audiences can view the films online for free, however if the film has just been released the quality will be terrible, as it'll be filmed via a camcorder by someone in the cinema. however if the film is released on DVD then it'll be DVD quality. As they can upload it straight to the web after buying the DVD. So thanks to this, film industries lose out on a lot of money. So the producers have their ups and downs with the new digital media today. So overall, i believe the audience has the most benefits.

Film industry research - Sony Pictures Entertainment

History of Sony Pictures Entertainment 

Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (SPE) is the American television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinationaltechnology and media conglomerate Sony. It is based in Culver City, California and serves as Sony's main global film production/distribution company. Its group sales in the fiscal year 2011 ended March 31, 2012 has been reported to be of $8.021 billion.

On September 28, 1989, Sony Corporation obtained an option to purchase all of The Coca-Cola Company's stake (49%) in Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (CPE; Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, etc.) for $27 per share.^[7] The next day, Sony also announced that it reached an agreement with Guber-Peters Entertainment Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: GPEC; formerly Barris Industries, Inc.) to acquire the company for $200 million when Sony hired Peter Guber and Jon Peters to head CPE.^[8] It was all led by Norio Ohga, who was the president and CEO of Sony during that time. On October 31, 1989, Sony completed a friendly takeover bid for the rest of shares (51%) of CPE, which was a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: KPE), and acquired 99.3% of the common stocks of the company. On November 8, 1989, Sony completed the acquisition by a "short-form" merger of its wholly owned subsidiary Sony Columbia Acquisition Corporation into CPE under Delaware law. Sony also completed a tender offer for shares of common stock of the GPEC on November 6, 1989 and acquired the company on November 9, 1989. The acquisition cost Sony $4.9 billion ($3.55 billion for shares and $1.4 billion of long-term debt) and was backed (financed) by 5 major Japanese banks Mitsui, Tokyo, Fuji, Mitsubishi and Industrial Bank of Japan.^[9][10][11] The company was renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment on August 7, 1991.^[12][13]
Sony has since created numerous other film production and distribution units, such as creating Sony Pictures Classics for art-house fare, by forming Columbia TriStar Pictures (also known as the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group) by merging Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures in 1998, revitalizing Columbia's former television division Screen Gems. It expanded its operations on April 8, 2005, when a Sony-led consortium acquired the legendary Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in a US$4.8 billion leveraged buyout, through the holding company MGM Holdings Inc.^[14][15][16]
On June 4, 2008, SPE's wholly owned group 2JS Productions B.V. acquired Dutch production company 2waytraffic N.V., famous for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and You Are What You Eat for £114.3 million ($223.2 million in US dollars).
On November 18, 2012, Sony Pictures announced it has passed $4 billion with the success of releases: Skyfall, The Amazing Spider-Man, 21 Jump Street, Men in Black 3, Hotel Transylvania, Underworld: Awakening, The Vow, and Resident Evil: Retribution.

The impact of YouTube on the film industry

YouTube is a video sharing website created in February in 2005, users can upload, view and share videos. Most videos on YouTube have been uploader by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, the BBC, VEVO, Hulu and other organizations offer some of their material via the site.

YouTube has helped the film industry massivly, more and more recent films trailers have been posted on YouTube. When posting the trailers on YouTube it allows people all across the world to view the videos, and it also a massive bonus that it's free to upload the videos. YouTube has a very high number of users and the videos uploaded get a high amount of views. So why wouldn't film makers use a free oppotunity to upload videos? Uploading videos allows users freedom of speech, as it gives them a feature of commenting on the videos with your views on the trailer. It also allows them to cleverly earn some money, this is doen via Google Adsense, Adsense is in control of all the adverts you see on the Youtube videos before the clip starts, and also the advert on the side. You simply sign up to them, and they pay you to add adverts to your video. I believe you earn from 0.05p to 0.75p for every video viewed. With each trailer getting a high amount of views you can tell it's going to be a high earner.

My three film case studies have all used YouTube to upload video clips, trailers etc to their YouTube sites. Near enough all film producers, and actual films have their own seperate YouTube channel. So firstly starting with my first case study being the film 'Harry Brown', this is one example of a film that doesn't have it's own YouTube page. But this isn't a problem, the producers of Harry brown have taken advantages of the YouTube organizations, this is a clever idea because these organizations have mass amount of suscribers already. So it's an easy way to advertise their trailers. The Harry Brown producers used two YouTube organizations to promote their trailer, firstly 'TheMovieJam'. This Youtube page uploads all the latests trailers for everyone to see, their total video views is 12,826,681. This is a very useful method for film makers, and it's even better as it's free. Like i said above, the YouTube companies make their money via advertising on their videos and pages.

Next i'm going to write about my second case study, being 'Attack The Block', this film is different to 'Harry Brown' as it has it's own YouTube page. Their YouTube page is called 'AttackTheBlockHD'. On this page, they upload a range of different videos. Not just the offical trailers, but also the behind the scenes footage. Which includes meeting the charactors via an interview. This creates a bigger personal identity with the charactors, so it allows us to get to know them a lot better. So it helps get the audience involved. Overall the Attack The Block YouTube page has 3,853,040 views. So that's a high amount of people who view the trailer, and it costs the producers of Attack The block nothing. So it's free advertising for them. They'll also make a high amount of money via the advertising aswell. If each video displays an advert create by Google Adsense before hand and each advert earns an average of 0.50p they'll earn £1926520. Which is an awful lot for simply displaying an advert before hand. They also allow users to express their feelings about the video on the comment section.

My final case study being 'SuperBad'. They use a similar approach as Attack The block, they also have their own YouTube page. On this is shows behind the scenes footage, offical trailers, However with SuperBad, YouTube gives you the option to watch the film on YouTube for a price of £7.99. This is the only film out my case study that you can watch online. This is good for the producers of SuperBad, as it's another platform that you'll be able to watch the film on. And you'll also make money from not only people buying the film to watch, but also advertising before the video.

So overall i believe YouTube is a good way to advertise videos, simply because it's free advertising. And also YouTube has a mass amount of viewers daily. So it's a good way to get your film trailers out there. YouTube also allows people to embed videos, so not only can you upload it to YouTube, but you can also display the video on your own website.