Letter

Dear Rupert Murdoch,

I am writing this letter regarding your “death of the newspaper” article and to address my views on it. I do believe that audiences prefer to view media online however by charging them for it £1 or £2 does not make it fair especially considering the current recession climate. I believe by charging us to view media online will in fact bring us back to reading newspapers which is something you want, however a more mainstream audience prefer for their news to be viewed online. This is because they are able to browse through their preferred genres and news stories, a feature which traditional newspapers do not acquire.

Case Study

The group I am studying are teenagers. I have chosen to study this specific group as in the media, teenagers are represented in different ways and create stereotypes which are positive, negative and controversial all around the world. I believe studying this group will give me a better understanding of the many stereotypes of both genders/sexes that have been created around this modern society.

The 4 media texts which I have chosen to study are Skins, 90210, Misfits and Inbetweeners. In the inbetweeners teenagers are represented as "casual students" who love to have fun and plain stupid most of the time. The boys are represented negatively as they are shown to sub-ordinate women and think of them only sexually and objectify them. At the same time when they are in contact with females they are quite shy and speechless. Women are shown to be stupid and naive and are over sexualised within some shots/camera angles.
In Skins the characters are represented differently through their gender. For example 2 girls are represented as bisexuals as they have sex with each other and also men. Effy is represented as an "emo" as she is shown hurting herself by slitting her wrists etc. This is controversial as it represents mental ilnesses negatively and makes the idea that people who are mentally ill will hurt themselves or people around them. The stereotype of misfits is that the protagonists are shown to be criminals. Certain characters such as Kelly are represented as a chav due to the jewlerry she wears and the amount of makeup she has on. She is stereotyped as a "typical chav" also controversial. Her superhero power is the ability to read minds which sub-ordinates her from her personality which is quite weird in a sense. However another character, simon is quite a shy person and the black sheep of the group, he has no care for his appearance and the fact that his superpower is the ability to become invisible connects with the shyness within his personality. Lastly 90210 is quite an opposite to the representations within UK. 90210 glamorises the daily highschool/college student life because it is set in Beverly Hills. It makes the idea that American lifestyles are much more better than UK as all students are driving fast expensive cars, and are living in big mansions compared to the settings used within Misfits and Skins.

One theory I should be applying is the Male Gaze. This is because it can be used in the representations within Inbetweeners as women are overly sexualised from a males point of view.

Players

In 1981 Rupert Murdoch acquired The Times and The Sunday Times. He also owns well known franchises such as Sky, British Satellite Broadcasting, and BSkyB. The Sun newspaper is owned by Newscorp which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch.

hello

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31117773/Misfits-Research-into-representations-of-youth-culture


http://www.queerty.com/90210s-gays-show-true-tv-diversity-homo-high-schoolers-have-ridiculous-drama-too-20101001/


http://tanyatvdramablog.blogspot.com/2009/03/costume-in-90210-naomi-and-adrianna.html

Adverts

This is an ad which has been found to be quite controversial in the public. It features a well known character known as Kim Kardashian. At first you would think that she is only promoting a salad and what harm can be caused, however a lot of sexual connotations cause for women to become offended yet at the same time men to gain pleasure from viewing these images. The clip starts off with a medium shot of the back of Kim Kardashian. Cleverly her head has been cut out and her ass has been made the vocal point which attracts men instantly. The voice over is also done by Kim Kardashian connoting her dominant role in the advertisement and perhaps even her glamorous stature portrays her dominance. She starts off by saying "I'm such a neat freak" and then a medium shot is shown of her whole body lying on the bed in a pose where her cleavage is shown to an extent. Her legs are also visible as her robe only covers her to her pelvis also revealing sexual connotations. A close up is done on her lips as she places the salad in her mouth, which makes it look as if she is giving oral sex which is a negative representation of women and an example of the factors they found controversial. The voice over continues of her saying “everything’s gotta be clean, crisp and tasty” which could be a phallic symbol of a penis and as she inserts the apple into her mouth a close up of liquid dripping in her mouth connotes a sexual pun of seamen. She also seems to be pulling on the covers also connoting sexual pleasure. She continues to say “and while the best things in life are messy” and more liquid seems to drop from the salad and a close up is done of her breasts which connote how the liquid is destined to be seamen and ending up positioned around her breasts. A close up is then done on her eyes to make it more pleasured for the male audience. She then goes to say “It’s fun to get clean” when only she has just had salad. However the salad is an iconic representation of sex and how after get dirty in the bed, it’s fun to get clean in the shower. Half of her body is then shown in the bath, portraying more sexual connotations and ironically at the same time still eating the salad. This is quite controversial to women as Kim Kardashian is a role model to some and as representing women she has done it negatively. She portrays women as sex objects solely for purposes of pleasuring women, and although her dominance in celebrity is signified, this advertisement shows how she herself is just a sexual object and she uses her body as an advantage in doing so, however also inflicting damage on women’s representations and males views on women.

This ad is more of a positive representation of women. It has been advertised for lingerie

producers Victoria Secrets. It starts off with various women saying “I love my body” and

shows many sizes of women and even races. The voice over continues to talk about Victoria secrets and how they have been designed in many styles and also come in many sizes. This connotes how women don't have to feel threatened or embarrassed about the size of their breasts as they have been designed for any size to fit and be held. It goes on to show the same women saying "this is my body" which states dominance and also confidence in themselves and their body, one women says "this is my favourite body" which shows that she doesn't care about being too fat or too skinny, she's happy the way she is and isn't under any pressure to impress anyone. And again the women say "my body is sexy" which connotes confidence in themselves which portrays women in a positive light. The voice over also re-enforces this by saying "there is a body for everybody" also making women feel quite dominant and confident in themselves. This is quite a positive representation of women as no sexual connotations are used in the advertisement. Men are not shown as only a bunch of vary sized women are shown. The advertisement portrays them to be quite confident in themselves and also confident in the size of their bodies. And although they are in Victoria secrets they are only modelling for the company and the confidence is portrayed throughout and enforced when the voice over says "there is a body for everybody" and "love your body".

Media Guardian 100

What is the Guardian 100 and who are the panellists that create it?
The Guardian 100 is an annual guide to the most powerful people in the industry. Candidates are judged on three categories which are their cultural, economic and political influence in the UK

Lord Waheed Alli
Daisy McAndrew
Jamie Kantrowitz
Richard Park
Sarah Sands
James Scroggs
Janine Gibson
Matt Wells

How many women are in the top 100?
13 women are in the top 100

What companies do these women work for and in what roles?
Co c founder/chief executive and actor
Director of vision
Controller
Chief executive
Controller of film and drama
Editor
Chairman and chief executive
Corporate marketing director and head of marketing
Chairman, Director
Chairman and chief executive
Head of E4
Digital champion
Chief executive

What percentage of the 100 is women?
The percentage of women in the Guardian 100 is roughly 16%

How would you assess the balance of power in this list and why do you think it is this way?
Clearly you can see the balance of power is in favour of men as only 16% of the Guardian 100 are women. You can clearly see that men are dominating over women and the statistics show how women are being subordinated. It can also be seen as a case of Hegemony as the class of men are empowering the class of women in society.

The Internet