Video games debate

Video games debate 
In this lesson we had to have a debate about video games. Here is what I found through research. 

Pros for video games

• Video games are a great way to relax after school or work. They are good for people who feel tired after a long day of work or school. It is important that people take the time to relax and have fun in this way. It makes people happier as well as more productive when they do work.

• Video games are more interactive than TV. When people watch TV, their brain goes into a low activity state. People who watch TV do not solve puzzles, think about the consequences of their actions, and have any control over the media. Video games on the other hand, can allow you to build critical thinking skills, and some even allow certain amounts of creativity.

• Video games can be played for a flexible period of time. Since you create the time you want for the game, it can keep you entertained from a couple minutes to several hours. Unlike a TV show, the video game turns on and off when you want it to start and finish.
• Gamers gain confidence in their mind and skill. For example, completing a hard video game or a hard level makes you feel a great sense of accomplishment. Since many people play video games, it has taken the role that sports did at one time. Those who are accomplished in playing are looked up to by their friends and social circle.

Examples of games that are deemed as good: 

Brain Training

Brain Training helps a wide range of audience with numerical and verbal exercises.  Brain Training has such a wide audience because it can be used by anyone. Children can use it to help them learn maths and adults can use it to keep their maths and english in knowledge. 

"Our results showed that commercial brain training game improves executive functions, working memory, and processing speed in young adults. Moreover, the popular puzzle game can engender improvement attention and visuo-spatial ability compared to playing the brain training game. The present study showed the scientific evidence which the brain training game had the beneficial effects on cognitive functions (executive functions, working memory and processing speed) in the healthy young adults."

Wii Fit

Wii Fit also helps a wide range of audience with exercising. Wii Fit combines fun and exercise into one, it can help how you exercise how you balance and even how you move. It can make people more healthy and create a better atmosphere. 

"I started off doing wii fit. I did an hour 4-5 times a week, focussing on the aerobics and muscle building sections. After 3 months I felt fit enough to restart swimming (after about 25 years of not doing it!) and other more advanced exercises." - fatlazymummy (poster of comment)

Some people think that games such as Wii Fit are behaving under the Hypodermic Needle Theory as people are being made to think that they have to have this product to stay fit and healthy, if they don't have it they could be made to feel lazy. Another thing it could be is reception theory as the audience will take from it good vibes, they'll feel good about themselves and happy after completing tasks that make them feel good.

Cons for video games

• Some people can become completely addicted. They do not go to work (or school), do not eat properly and do not exercise enough.
• Some people can become desensitized to violence. When they a lot of violent video games. There have been reports of criminals copying violent video game crimes (such as those featured in the controversial Grand Theft Auto series).
• Some people may think that taking drugs, getting drunk and smoking are not harmful. When they are presented in video games without the characters feeling any effects from their behavior.
• Can give people false expectations of real life. As real life cannot be perfectly simulated by video games.

Examples of games that are deemed as bad: 

Man Hunt
Man Hunt was a psychological horror game which showed various death scenes of victims throughout the game. The game did become extremely popular but as cases of murders seemed to rise in the UK, a lot of people blamed the game Man Hunt for the deaths. The game finally got banned because a lot of representatives around the world stood up to say the game was showing people how to kill.  

"It's just one gruesome kill after another until the violence loses its punch. Too bad that happens after the first couple missions. If you want a stealth game, there are better ones out there. If you want blood, do yourself a favor a buy a tube of red dye #5, instead."

Man Hunt is an example of passive and active consumption as either people have an opinion or they don't. The active people are quick to write up many reviews on the game whereas the passive people just leave it and don't bother a lot. Also uses and gratification falls under this game genre because people could play this sort of game to escape from reality, be in a new world or to take anger out on things in their life, on things in the game. 

Recourses:

Pros for video games 

Cons for video games 

Brain Training quote 

Wii Fit quote 

ManHunt quote 

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Negotiated, preferred and oppositional media responses

Audience responses
In this blog post I will look at the different types of responses that audiences can have to a media product.

Different responses 


Negotiated

A negotiated response is when the audience put their own opinions and values towards the product.

Within radio this can mean the way you listen to the radio. If you like listening to the radio when you're in the car, but a presenter is on the radio at the time, you won't want to listen and that's purely down to the fact of your opinion on the person. Another example would be if you really loved listening to the radio - but it stops you from concentrating on your work, therefore your value of the radio won't be as high.

My own personal example would be that I like listening to the radio but I don't like listening to the radio when presenters are talking because I'd rather listen to music instead of people talking for a long time, therefor I either don't listen to the radio or I choose station's that don't have presenters.

Preferred
A preferred response is what the public will take from the product.

Within radio the morning shows on might be extremely happy to wake everyone up properly, so this would make the audience happy and want them to listen again next time they are in the car or near a radio or late at night the music will be slightly night club themed which would make people want to party and get out and do something.

Within the film side of media I thought of an example too. Many girls watch romantic comedies and as an example the film "The Notebook". Many girls watch that film and think the main character Ryan Gosling is what every boy is going to be like in the real world, therefor they build an expectation from the product and take away unrealistic emotions from the products and build up things from the movie in real life.

Oppositional
A oppositional response is when a person that isn't in the target audience will think badly towards to the other responses. Instead they will take a bad look on the product.

Within the radio area of media most radio stations won't play songs on the radio if they are inappropriate for children to hear because of legal and ethical reasons but some radio stations will play songs with very very light inappropriate language in, e.g, the word "ass". Therefore someone would listen to the whole show and then hear one bad thing happen and instead of thinking anything good, they'll take a bad look on the product and think badly instantly.

Within the film side of media I thought of an example too. There is a movie out called Pitch Perfect and there's a character called "Fat Amy". This may offend a lot of people because without even going into the movie they're highlighting and being proud of the fact there's a fat person. Instead of thinking "That's really good she isn't afraid to be happy with her weight", oppositional responses would be more likely to say "That's inappropriate, it will make other people think it's okay to go around calling people fat all the time"

Participatory 
Participatory is when the audience can join in and be apart of the product.

For example the film "The Break-Up". The way you can join in with the film is in the beginning their is two sides to the story and you can pick either the man or the woman's side to follow and watch throughout or in the music video "coming to get me" by Professor Green you can choose which camera angle you want to watch the video in. Both of these examples are showing of ways to interact. 

My own example for radio would be if on the radio's site, there would be a poll for a song to be played next and if the person chose, this would be a way of joining in and interacting with the product.

Cultural competence 
Cultural competence is the way we communicate with people through modern technology and how we are able to access and understand people of other cultures

For example, the internet. The internet has improved in massive amounts in technology and we can view how different things are for different cultures, this can sometimes cause trouble as other cultures want to behave like the one they see on the internet and it turns around to rebellions of government.

An example in the film industry is Brokeback Mountain. The reason Brokeback Mountain would be a cultural competence is because the film pushed the boundary as in at this time homosexuality wasn't accepted and people stereotyped cowboys as the sort of men that would not be homosexual.

An example in radio is that their could be a show on and they're having a discussion about different cultures. One of the presenters could talk about a culture you haven't heard about and make an opinion on this culture that sounds slightly harsh, therefore I could go onto the internet and search this culture for myself as their opinion is only an opinion and not fact so I could find my own research onto it.

Fan culture 
Fan culture is the way that fans are having an active influence on the media product and society

For example in television and film, their is a programme called Veronica Mars that is popular in the USA and the company who made it wanted to make a movie, they attempted to make the movie but didn't have enough budget to create it but with the extremely wide fan base they had, the fan base started to donate money in to the budget and now the movie is being made.

Resources:
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Audience theory

Hypodermic needle theory, users and gratifications, reception study and passive or active consumptions

Radio station
In this lesson we had to learn about the different audience theories. This blog post is going to explain what the hypodermic needle, passive and active consumption and uses and gratification is, with examples of how radio stations can use these different theories.

Hypodermic needle
Hypodermic needle is the idea that the media is injecting certain things into you and passing on subliminal messages to make you think you need certain things in your life. For example commercial radio stations have advertisements and these advertisements are there to persuade you to buy something even if you don't need it as mass media has a large effect on audiences.

For example radio stations like KISS advertise some cleaning products like Flash or Dazz and they make you feel like you must have one of those products and they describe it in the way that makes you feel like you should and must have one.

Passive and active consumption

Passive means they don't really have an opinion, they don't take much in and they don't pay a lot of attention but active means they go out of there way, they're mostly social network users and they create a large excitement about whatever they love and they share their opinions, read other blog posts and buy merchandise.

If passive people were listening to my radio station they'd just listen in to my show and they wouldn't bother doing much otherwise than listen to it.

If active people were listening to my radio station they'd be able to be active by listening in continuously, leaving comments on Facebook or Twitter and they can ring or text into the show.

Uses and gratification
Uses and gratification means to understand what people do with the media products.
For example -

• Emotional release
• Escaping from reality
• Pleasure

If someone was going through a break up, they could listen to my radio station so they could hear all happy songs that would cheer them up and make them feel a lot more happy or they may of wanted to escape from the real aspect of life so they might listen to forget about their problems, which is a similar reason to the emotional release and finally they may listen to my radio for pleasure as I play many of their favorite artists.

Reception theory
Reception theory is how the audience interpret the product and what they take from it.

For example they would take a song, news story or topic from the radio show and put meaning behind it because of what they feel or believe, or have had experiences will similar things in the past.

Resources:
Uses and gratification
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Reception theory

Reception theory

In this lesson we watched Vantage Point and we were asked to then speak about how reception theory works while watching a film. This blog post will explain what reception theory is and how it effected me whilst watching Vantage Point.

Reception theory provides a means of understanding media texts by understanding how these texts are read by audiences. Reception theory argues that contextual factors, more than textual ones, influence the way the spectator views the film or television program.


Vantage point
When I watched Vantage Point I was in a classroom with natural light coming through the window where I was sat. Therefor it wasn't a scary or there wasn't an atmosphere that put me on edge.  I also watched it with my friends therefor I wasn't scared as they were making situations slightly funny and I couldn't take the film serious where as if I had watched Vantage point in the cinema there would of been a different atmosphere as it would be pitch black, I would of been with strangers, it's a larger room with no windows and only escape doors therefore it could make you feel clostrephobic and more on edge than you would be at home in a place you know and you feel safe, it would of felt more tense.

Recourses:
http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Reception-Theory.html

Audience profile

This would be my audience profile for my music video.

Second Media Product

Music video 
In this lesson we had to look at the different aspects of researching. I then need to create a blog post explaining the different types of researching and how I can use them to help create a music video for my FMP.

For my second media product I'd like to create a music video. I need to look at the different types of audience feedback to find out how I can find my perfect target audience.

Primary research
I can go out and give questionnaires to the target audience I would like, therefore I would get back the answers I need to create something they would like.

Quantitive
I can find quantitive research by creating polls on the internet. This would be good as the internet is used so often and so much by teenagers that I could get a big audience of answers.

Qualitative 
I can create a focus group to find out more in depth information. This would be good because then I would have a more detailed discussion into the target audience and what they would want instead of a one word answer.

Secondary research
I can find qualitative research by looking at the target audience of other similar music genres. As I'd most likely create an upbeat song I could look at Hip Hop, Rap or R'n'B songs.

I can also look on BARB which is the Broadcasting Audience Research Board and they will show me which music channels are most popular and have the most popular shows. This could help me in my discovery because I would know what to watch, what my target audience watch and where to possibly broadcast my music video.

The BBC looked into how music plays within the life of a teenager and the research they did on their target audience was telling them to keep a journal of the music they came into contact with music and how, they got a group of the target audience together and created a talking session to find more out. They also were given cameras to take photos of their lives and moments with their friends, so the BBC could see what sort of people they were targeting and finally a couple of people in the target audience had a researcher following them throughout their daily life and taking notes of what was going on within there day to day business. 

Resources:

BARB weekly top 10 music channels

BBC music audience

Audience feedback

Audience feedback
In this lesson we learnt about audience feedback, I then put that research into examples for my first FMP idea.

Audience feedback can be:

• Focus groups
• Questionnaires/Survey 
• Reviews 
• Letters 
• Complaints 

Audience feedback within magazines can be done in different ways. 

For a focus group they get a small group of the target audience together and will hand them out one copy of the magazine, they then will get the group to comment on what's good and what's bad. This is a good process as they're hearing directly from the target audience and they are getting all types of feedback. 

With questionnaires they can put a questionnaire in the magazine and see if the people who buy it will fill them out. This is good because it will go to a lot of people and you'll get many different opinions but also it's bad because most people throw away any loose papers in their magazines and aren't interested in answering questionnaires, so they might not get answered. 

Reviews of magazines aren't done very often but again like the questionnaires, they might send out a review of the magazine along with the magazine, but this has the same good and bad points as questionnaires do.

Another thing with magazines that's different to some media products is that you can send emails and letters to the people that create the content of the magazine. If there's something in for example, Heat magazine, that the audience aren't happy about they can contact the magazine and tell them what they didn't like and sometimes they will even post the emails or letters in their magazine.

Complaints are deemed as good feedback because sometimes if you have a wide range of complaints that means people may buy your product so that they can see what people are complaining about. Also the term "Bad and good is better than none at all" is used throughout the Media industry.

Resources:
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Representation

Representation 
In this blog post I will explain what representation is and how it is used within magazines as this is my first FMP idea.

Representation is how something is shown through symbolisation or stereotypes. For example a person, location, country, place or companies.

Locations
Essex - When you think of Essex you automatically stereotype it by suggesting the people are all orange.
England - People think that all British people drink tea and eat a big breakfast.
Abroad countries - Places like the Caribbean and Spain, you think they're going to be sunny all the time.

Places
Castles - You think they'll be really well looked after and wealthy.
Council estates - You think they might be rough.

Companies
Harrods - Rich people would shop there.
Poundland - Poor people would shop there.

Magazines
Representation is shown through magazines in many different ways. Through adverts, men and articles depending on what they are.

Representation is shown through adverts because of something like a make up advert. For a make up advert they are going to use a attractive female to show the make up off because this will show the audience it looks really good, they wouldn't use females that would be deemed as ugly.

In Heat magazine they have a 'Torso of the Week' and for this they use a man who is fit, has a muscly body and is attractive. Again like the advert, they're going to use someone attractive, not a man who is over weight or extremely skinny.

Sometimes in Heat they do stories on celebrities that are over weight or have bad skin. For stories like this they always use celebrities that are over weight and have skin problems because if they used skinny and good skinned celebrities, it wouldn't interest the readers.

Some more adverts through Heat is TV adverts. Heat advertised X Factor and instead of showing Simon Cowell or Louis Walsh which wouldn't be as exciting to draw attention, they used Cheryl Cole, who was a lot more attractive and it is stereotyped because the people who made it would think Cheryl is more attractive to the eye, so we'll use her.

Resources:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SsRR0I_mqkg/TMrR9xEmvkI/AAAAAAAAABY/sTrkCGeY0OU/s1600/MAYBELLIE+ADVERT.jpg (image)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/badgirljo/heat.jpg (image)
http://db2.stb.s-msn.com/i/4C/15AC58F48F1079FE54339E889D7D20.jpg (image)
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Production, Distribution and Changes

Production, distribution and changes.
In this blog post I will talk abut the production, genre, distribution and changes within magazines.

Production Technology
The production technology for magazines is print.

Distribution
Magazines are distributed in shops e.g, supermarkets, local shops/newsagents, where you can get physical copies. You can read them online if you have a subscription or when you buy certain newspapers you can receive a free magazine.

Genre

• Lifestyle
• Entertainment
• Music
• Health
• Fashion
• Women's Issues
• Mens Issues 
• Art
• Comics
• Graphic novels 
• Religious 

The target genre for my chosen magazine
The target genre for Heat is a Entertainment magazine aimed at middle-class women who have a sense of humour and are interested in enjoy gossip and celebrities.

Codes and conventions of Heat - Nowadays 

• Bright colours to attract attention of the eye
• Girly colours such as pinks, reds and purples 

• Pictures of men without their shirts to perhaps attract the women to the magazine, for example the "Torso of the week"

 

• Pictures of celebrities in casual situations so the readers can relate
• Attention grabbing headlines

Codes and conventions of The People from 1980.

• Front page is more simple as there's only one story on there and it isn't a story that can be deemed as something "silly". The stories on the Heat cover were about celebrities having spots, people in the 1990's wouldn't of published stories about those type of things in a high end entertainment magazine. 
• The colour scheme is red with white then yellow with blue. These colours are simple, they don't jump out in your face like the ones on Heat. 

Narrative structures
The types of narrative structures are linear, non linear, multi strand, single strand, open ending and closed ending.

I have looked at an advert for Heat magazine and I decided that the types of narratives included in this are linear, a closed ending and multi strand. I think it's linear because it has a beginning, middle and end. In the beginning everything is happy, in the middle the drama happens and by the end it's over. I think it is multi strand because it's following both of the peoples point of view and the ending is a closed ending because you see who takes the magazine and the fight is finished. The advert relates with the target audience because of the women in the clip. The women all look the same age and they're in clothes that don't look they paid millions for which may show they're middle class working by what they wear.

Resources:
http://journalism.winchester.ac.uk/?page=256
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Heat magazine - Selection of content, construction of content, codes and conventions and modes of address.

Selection of content, construction of content, codes and conventions and modes of address
In this blog post I will be talking about the magazine Heat. I will be explaining the content they use and the construction of it, the codes and conventions and modes of address.

Heat magazine
The name of this media product is Heat magazine. Heat magazine is a celebrity gossip magazine and it is ran by the company Bauer Media, in England. All the content in Heat magazine is about celebrities, fashion, beauty and advice. Addressing the audience with Heat Magazine is about the selection of content. 

This could be something like the logo. The logo is the title on the magazine and every single magazine of Heat has the same title which shows it is the logo as it is instantly recognisable from this. The logo is 'heat' written in red with a white background or outline and they use this logo so that they are easily identified to the public. The logo stands out instantly as it's a bright colour on a plain background and this then creates it to stand out and red is also a colour that you'd find womanly, which is their target audience, so women would be attracted towards it. 

The content of the magazine is mostly to do with celebrities. It's got the latest relationships, celebrities becoming mothers and gossip that's going on in the celebrity world. The fashion content tends to be the latest red carpet dresses or celebrities that have been caught going out in a really fashionable outfit that has gained a lot of popular attention. All though in the fashion pages there is always a "high street" style next to the celebrity style, which may show that the target audience aren't higher working class, as they can only afford  the high street style. Unlike in a magazine like Vogue, there's only the the highest end style for the highest working class women.

The captions throughout Heat magazine are humorous, they tend to be in small print on the images. The images in Heat magazine are images of celebrities to go with the story that was written about them and obviously there images of the celebrities in the fashion pages. 

The modes of address means the way something is presented. The way Heat is presented is very basically laid out. First thing you see with the selection of content is the front page which has all the latest stories on. The front page tends to always have pinks, reds, bright blues and yellows on to catch the attention of people when they're looking over the magazines in the shop, this is a code and convention of most magazines, the front cover needs to catch the eye of people in the super market. When you look into the magazine the content you see is some adverts for products, the adverts throughout the magazine tend to be women advertisements things women would want because the target audience is women so it wouldn't make sense for them to advertise something for men or children. Then we have the contents page, then usually a page that has many different short pieces of information on that isn't important enough to make the main stories. After this there's stories that were on the front cover then usually fashion/health, movies that are coming into the cinema, advertisements or beauty in between the main stories and towards the back of the magazine we see the horoscopes, letters and emails, vouchers and fitness advice. The layout of Heat magazine is what I would call informal as there's images put under writing, text around images, captions over image. Also they tend to have one large image in the center of the story, the the text around. The titles are always in the top left hand corner and the sub titles are always underneath in smaller print and their stories are always in columns.

Recourses:
http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/about
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Mass/Niche - Magazines

Mass and niche 
In this blog post I will be explaining what mass and niche is and how they fit into one of my FMP's (Final Media Products). One of these I have chosen is to complete and create my own magazine.

Magazines as a whole are a mass media product but you can also get niche magazines.

Mass
Mass marketing is about creating a product which appeals to all types of consumer. Mass marketing often ends up with the brand name being used instead of the product name.

Niche
A niche market is usually a smaller segment of a larger market. Companies using a niche market often get less sales than they would if they aimed at a mass market. 

Mass magazines: Heat.
Heat is a mass magazine product because this magazine covers many different things. For example they have fashion, celebrities, health and advice. This type of magazine could target different audiences as they have a diverse amounts of topics. 

Niche: Empire.

Empire is a niche magazine product and this is because it only covers one specific type of product, which is films. This magazine will tend to only hit one audience which would be film lovers.

Resources:
Mass and niche
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FMP

FMP: For my final FMP (Final Media Products) ideas I have thought I'd like to create one of the following three:

• my own magazine
• a radio station 
• music video

For my magazine I'd like to create a celebrity gossip magazine for the teenage audience only. I'd like it include a lot of advice columns, fashion and gossip about the celebrities they like most. My target audience would be between the ages of 14-19, I'm aware it's not the largest target audience but for what I want I need to have the suitable age range of teenagers as some things in the magazine could not be suitable for young children or older women.

For my music video I would like to create a music video to a drum and base song, because I like the idea of having the music being cut to a real beat of music and I can imagine using the studio to create an amazing effect with the lights for the chorus and creating a music video that I would be really proud of.

For my radio station I'd like to create a rap station, followed with news, conversation and music that could follow this genre. I personally don't think there is a radio station that is specific to playing just rap music, talking about only rap artists and revealing the news about rap artists. Also, this is my favourite type of music so I'll enjoy creating this throughly.