Christmas work

MEDIA STUDIES MOCK QUESTIONS – CHRISTMAS 2018

1.      Consider how the audience is positioned through representations in the WaterAid avert you have studied and the 2014 Barnardo’s Advert (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGnOxsrO7rI)

Charity adverts are typically dark and heart-wrenching, in order to create an atmosphere where people become more susceptible to donating. Typically, the focus is always on someone vulnerable, with and instrumental soundtrack and sometimes a narrator telling the story to the audience.

The Barnardo’s advert is a perfect example of a conventional charity advert, due to the focus of the child and the non-diegetic sound of the narrator’s voice. His voice is supposedly gentle, and soothing, and this positions the audience to feel sympathy as it juxtaposes the diegetic sound of the argument within the boy’s home. The mise-en-scene of a normal family home creates something the audience is familiar with, and by positioning the audience within the boy’s home it creates a level of discomfort as people would feel like they were intruding, however as the audience is not there, they cannot stop it themselves – pushing them to want to donate. As well as this, the use of the teddy bear paired with the proairetic code of him hiding in the cupboard represents vulnerability and generates sympathy within the audience to feel another urge to donate. The audience is also frequently positioned in front of the boy’s eyes, which could make the viewer feel guilty and a need to donate. Lastly, the use of a desaturated image creates an even more sad tone within the advert and presents something more tragic.

In comparison to this, the WaterAid advert breaks many conventions. To begin with, the start of the advert is familiar to the audience as it is in the UK, where the advert would be shown, and it is raining outside. However, this is shortly juxtaposed with the dry and arid conditions of Claudia’s home, and this binary opposition could emphasise how people in the UK are much luckier than Claudia as we have plenty of rain and water, as well as privileges like a radio. Again mise-en-scene is used to create a binary opposition, as the use of a radio (quite expensive) in comparison to a swing made of twigs as children’s entertainment again positions the audience in a place of privilege. Claudia herself represents young women, and the way she is represented as strong and as confident could display to the audience how something as simple as a clean water supply can help make people like Claudia not only healthier, but happier. This subverts traditional charity advertising as it is no showing something miserable, but something happy. The atmosphere throughout the advert is very bright, and the diegetic sound of laughter and the smiling faces of the children add to the subversive nature of the advert. As well as this, the song ‘Sunshine on a Rainy Day’ was released in 1990, and this appeals to quite a young audience (20s – 30s) and they may get a feeling of nostalgia, and possibly therefore relate to Claudia much more. These happier factors could lead people to donate because they are seeing the benefits of what their money can do, and the advert also stands out from the others (such as the Barnardo’s advert) and this could make people feel less guilty but more rewarded by donating.

Using Stuart Hall’s reception theory, both adverts have the same preferred reading, being that the audience should have sympathy for the main character and that they should donate. However, the WaterAid advert is much more polysemic because it is not stereotypical of charity adverts, and therefore an oppositional reading of it could be that the audience should feel happy donating, rather than guilty because they are not donating. This is the dominant ideology of the Barnardo’s advert, and the narrative within it causes so much guilt that the audience would feel bad if they did not donate. This also makes it much more limited to having multiple readings, because there is very little ways of viewing the advert and not feeling guilty, especially as we are positioned with the child within the home, and feel helpless towards them.

To conclude, both adverts use positioning to place the audience within a situation they are not familiar with, however the oppositional atmospheres of the adverts evoke different feelings within the audience. Even though both display how the audience has the power to donate and change the situation, one advert displays the benefits of donating and one displays what happens if the audience does not donate. These different approaches both work in persuading the audience to donate, however I feel that the WaterAid advert is much more successful because displaying the benefits of donations make people feel proud of donating.

2.      Humans and The Returned

According to Claude Levi-Strauss, texts convey meanings through a system of binary oppositions.

Evaluate this structuralist theory. Refer to set episodes of Humans and The Returned in your response.

By using binary opposition, media texts convey meanings which can make the audience relate to the product but also can create a separation between the audience and the product. For example, in ‘Humans’, a binary opposition is created to separate the audience and the synths, whereas within Les Revenents very little binary opposition is used. Binary opposition is important as it can often make the audience more responsive to certain characters, and a lack of it could make a show seem much less interesting, as it has less aspects to consider.

The most effective binary opposition within Humans is the separation of the human and synth world. To begin with, the establishing shot of the synth warehouse uses high-key bright blue lighting, and this emphasises the synthetic nature of the robots within it, as well as the way that they are in perfectly neat rows and the space itself is immaculate, white and clean. This clinical atmosphere once again reinforces the producer’s ideology that the synths are unnatural, as bright white and perfect rows are symbolic of synthetic products. Immediately, this is contrasted by an establishing long shot of the human world, and we can see a city in the daytime with a bright sun shining. The use of more natural, yellow light creates a binary opposition with what we have seen previously, with the contrast of the natural and synthetic lights distinguishing between the different worlds of the synths and the humans. The house we are introduced to is also much louder and messier, with the diegetic sound of the phone ringing and children playing in the background. The audience would relate to this much more, and therefore by creating a binary opposition between not only the humans in the show but the audience from the synths.

Mise-en-scene is also used within Humans to create binary opposition, as the makeup of Laura and Anita completely contrast one another. Lisa has unruly hair, looks tired and also wears lots of layers of clothes, much like a normal busy mother would. However, Anita has a much cleaner and polished look. Her eyes are a bright green (as are all the synths within the programme) in comparison to Laura’s plain brown eyes, and Anita has straight hair and a neat uniform. This emphasised how she has been created as the perfect ‘housewife’ figure, to do all of the chores, whereas Laura could seem like a bad wife in comparison, as she is always away from home. Due to Anita’s perfection, Laura gets defensive over the way her youngest daughter is treated, and still wants her to love her as a mother, although she constantly begs for Anita to put her to bed and such. What this binary opposition does is it suggests to the audience what boundaries there should be between humans and robots, and in an allegorical sense if we are creating something too unnatural, as humanoid robotic technology is already popular today and quite far developed.

However, within Les Revenents, the worlds are completely the same. Very little binary opposition is used within the show, and because of this the audience may feel more immersed within the show, and therefore feel as though it is more real. What is interesting for this show is actually the body language of the actors themselves that creates the opposition – the real people react strangely to the ‘returned’, and due to the non-linear sequencing within the show it creates a hermeneutic code and makes the audience more thoughtful about why these people are so strange to the others, when to the audience it seems more normal. The use of age between Victor and Julie is also significant, as Victor represents someone young and vulnerable, however he is much more assertive than Julie, as she is left unsure as a reaction to his silence. The opposition of age here is almost flipped, as Julie is left looking vulnerable as she threatens to call the police if Victor does not talk. Although she does not actually do this, she is emitting an emotion that would not be normal for an adult and child, and their emotional responses are unusual. Another technique that is also used is Barthe’s theory of semiotics, and symbolic codes. The butterfly at the start of the show is symbolic of rebirth, not only because it literally comes back to life, but also because butterflies themselves create cocoons and become butterflies, and this is a common metaphor for re-birth, much like the ‘returned’ come back from the dead. Although this is not obvious from the start, the proairetic code of the butterfly smashing the glass case at the start of the episode already indicates that an equilibrium has been disturbed, in this case the equilibrium between life and death.

To conclude, although in Humans the binary oppositions are much clearer than in Les Revenants, it plays a significant role in each in order to make the audience more wrapped in the show itself. What it does mostly is gets the audience to question their own emotions, especially in the case of Humans, where you are left feeling much more considerate of the ethics of humanoid robots – although there are clear differences between synths and humans, there is also so many similarities that the oppositions create more of a stimulus for conversation. In Les Revenants, however, the subtleties come from plain human emotion and makes the audience think about the way that the characters must process their own grief, and makes the audience much more wrapped up in the deeper things such as religion and life after death. This more existential nature may seem more enticing to audiences, as it is more unfamiliar than the synths of Humans.

3.      To what extent has sociohistorical context influenced representations in the magazines you have studied? Make reference to both Adbusters and Woman

Sociohistorical context is always prominent within magazines, and within Woman and Adbusters, it is particularly obvious what has influenced the articles during the time they were published. For example, Woman magazine is from the 1950s, and the sexism of the time and ‘expectations’ of how people should be in society is clearly shown, as well as Adbusters displaying it’s postmodern qualities and criticism of our modern society.

Within Woman magazine, we can see that women are represented in the stereotypical housewife ideals of the 1950s, and one article that especially presents this is the article on kitchen improvements. The lexis of “A present for your kitchen” implies that women only care about this area of their home, especially the use of the word ‘present’. Another striking reference to the sexism of the time is the passage about building a cupboard, which says “get the man in your life” – this type of lexis purposely places women in a position of weakness in comparison to men. Bel hooks, a feminist theorist, believes in equality between men and women with a ‘feminism for all’ approach, and I feel that this particular line displays why she feels her ideology is important. Women at the time were not seen as being equal to their husbands, which is prominent here.

What also stands out is an advert for soap, depicting a naked woman covered in suds. Using Lisbet Van Zoonen’s male gaze theory, we can see here that her body is being used to sell a product – and what Van Zoonen theorises is that that is all women are good for in the eyes of men. What the advert also does is creates an expectation that women should always be clean and fresh, purely “because you’re a woman”, and the anchorage of this displays the ideology that in order to be attractive, you need to be clean.

Adbusters also displays the sociohistorical context of the time effectively, through the use of postmodern culturejammed adverts. Beaudrillard’s theory of postmodernism as a criticism of the times is highly prominent especially within the ‘Louboutin’ advert, which says that “red soles are always in fashion”. This is a direct attack on capitalism and cultural capital. People in the modern world care more for possessions and for displaying their money that they ignore the fact that people within poorer countries are struggling. A similar advert to this is the use of binary opposition of a photograph of immigrants in a camp and a woman on the catwalk. What this displays is the way that people will pay to watch pointless things like fashion shows, however turn a blind eye to bigger problems. By placing the photo at the top of the page, the producer has presented the ideology that it is a much more important matter, and that it should come above our wants to see something as materialistic as a fashion show.

Overall, both magazines have consciously used certain images and phrases which display the sociohistorical contexts of the time, although Woman magazine is much more direct and open about sexism, whereas Adbusters has a much more critical viewpoint of the time it was made.