MEST3 mock exam - Learner Response

1) Type up your feedback in full (you do not need to write mark/grade if you do not wish to).

Section A
More detail needed

Personal identity needs to be expanded on

Make sense

Section B
Where is the news case study? We spent 15 weeks studying it!

Where are the examples? theories?

Some good points in  there to build on but a lot  of work to do before the real thing

2) Read through the mark scheme. Pay particular attention to page 9 that has suggested content for each of the questions in Section A. How many of these potential points did you make? Did you successfully answer the questions?

Q1: Faster editing, Identification developed via montage celebrating universality of marriage and soundtrack.

Q2: Identity and control representations

Q3: Demographic targeting

3) Now look at page 15 of the mark scheme. How many of the broad areas suggested by AQA did you cover in your Section B essay? Did you successfully answer the question?

Q7: Individual freedom

4) Read the Examiner's Report in full. For each question, would you classify your response as one of the stronger answers or one of the weaker answers the Chief Examiner discusses? Why? What could you do differently next time? Write a reflection for EACH question in the paper.

Q1: I believe i did poor on this and would need to improve on my media terminology as with Diegetic and non-digetic. i gave points which would give me a mark however, this would not be in detail as in not giving an example and the effect of this. Next time i would need to work on the depth and media terminology as to how it gives the effect to the audience and what message it is sending.

Q2: I did bad in this question too, giving points but not explaining them widely. I would be needing to link to personal identity but gave very vague points on this. next time i would be wanting to work on giving the detail into identity and the effects on the two videos shown. I need to read my work carefully because i don't make sense in one paragraph about the theory uses and gratification.

Q3: i believe this was a hard question and did the same by giving points about demographics but didn't exceed to any other points as to advertising they did in the videos. i believe next time i would need to bring my own digital news stories and bring more points. This would be because of my time management which would need to be worked on.

Q7: I believe i did bad in this and need to work on my time management. i gave good points as to linking with my case study but i believe i needed more theory, media terminology and depth within my answers. Next time i would need to work with time and try to atleast focus more on section B as it does hold most of the marks.

5) Choose your weakest question in Section A and re-write an answer in full based on the suggested content from the Examiner's Report. This answer needs to be comprehensive and meet the criteria for Level 4 of the mark scheme. This will be somewhere between 3-6 well-developed paragraphs (depending on the number of marks).

Question 1: Contrast the techniques used by each product to communicate its message

With the first advert from Google Nexus 5 gives a viewpoint of a photographer this would be showing the different environments where the camera can be used. it gives the features of slow motion and video recording in difficult lighting. The message it gives is that its unique phone which can ergonomically fit with the user and can take pictures in the most difficult atmospheres. This is different to the second text which is very fast editing giving a fast pace to the audience's eye. It gives this effect as to the text being shown and making the audience think as to our identity. For example it gives the text on different people faces as to what our name is or what our height is. it communicates the message that we are unique and if we really know the question of who we are. However there are similarities with the texts on the nexus 5 advert but it is a normal pace with simple text which communicates the message of the different places where the phone can be used and how it can be used as to messaging and social networking.

Both of the text give a similarity with being social as to data being taken from people. It is both communicating people to be part of a group. for example Nexus is giving the persuasion to be part of the technology and the Bluefish video is giving the option to be part of a religious belief. They both give different people in the adverts who are different in age as to the girl in the Nexus advert and the different faces in the Bluefish ad. This communicates the message that it appeals to all different people and that no matter what age or nationality any body would interested in the phone or can choose what they want to have a belief in. The techniques used in each product is similar in some ways as to being social and the idea of having big bold text to give audience idea to questions themselves. There are also differences as to identification being developed as to the celebration of universality of marriage shown by the homosexual couple. this would be the effect of the nexus communicating the message to the audience that it can be used in any happy environment and that we are in an era of no judgement anymore.

For example the Nexus is given in different locations and different kind of cultures and gives the message that its for anybody. This would be by the fact it gives the idea of self realisation as to audience believe they should get this product not only because how good it is but how the industry want to be shown and represented as they give their message of being a business which will sell to anyone and doesn't judge. This would also be by the catchy soundtrack with the Non-diegetic sounds and the whistling noise which communicates the message of happiness and Diegetic sounds of people being happy which communicates that with this phone we should be recording moment like that and save them.  Finally there are similarities and differences with these two texts but they give the message of self-realisation hugely as to audience wondering if they want the phone for the Nexus and if they want to change belief. This is an effect because it is making audience contemplate what they want to do which is important as it is creating a desire for the nexus and a question of who they are for the Bluefish video using the techniques of texts and images. For example the different places in the nexus advert and the text with the Bluefish advert.

Guardian Media Group to cut 250 jobs in bid to break even within three years

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/17/guardian-media-group-to-cut-250-jobs

Publisher of the Guardian and Observer says it hopes cuts, which include target of 100 editorial roles, will all be voluntary. The article explains Guardian Media Group is planning to cut 250 jobs including 100 in editorial  and to restructure the less profitable parts of the company in a bid to break even within three years. As part of plans to cut operating losses, which amounted to £58.6m in the year to the end of March, the Guardian and Observer publisher is to give up its ambitions to turn the Midlands Goods Shed, a former train depot, into a large events space and will restructure the less profitable parts of the business.In total, the UK workforce is expected to be cut by 18%, or 310 jobs, as about 60 positions in both commercial and editorial remain unfilled. The company hopes all cuts will be made by voluntary redundancies.

1. All proposals were presented to staff representatives on Thursday, with the consultation exercise set to last for eight weeks. Voluntary redundancy terms are set to be agreed with unions in the coming weeks.

2. In January, the Guardian unveiled a three-year plan that aimed to break even at an operating level by 2018/19 by focusing on new revenue streams and a new membership proposal as well as a 20% overall reduction in the cost base.

3. Print advertising fell sharply in the year by an estimated 25%, and although the Guardian beat this market average, the decline was not offset by digital revenues. The business spent almost £80m in cash in the year to the end of March although the cash and investment fund, boosted by the sale of various assets including its stake in Trader Media Group in 2014, stood at £740m in January, down from £838.3m last July.

In my opinion i believe that with the advancement of digital information there would to be cuts because of this as to the use of digital media. This would be because of the use as to in the guardian it is not popular and they should make the cuts. I believe that this would be sad for the workers in the news industry but the industry would need to survive. The advantage for the guardian is that they are saving money and can use for their next innovations in the future.

Independent, Mirror, Express and Star suffer sharp fall in traffic

 http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/17/independent-mirror-express-and-star-suffer-sharp-fall-in-traffic

Decline across all UK press, except Sun and Guardian, follows coverage of David Bowie and Alan Rickman deaths earlier in year which boosted visitor. The Independent, Mirror and both of Richard Demond’s titles, the Express and Daily Star, suffered sharp falls in daily traffic in February, as most of the UK’s press saw declines in online visitors.The article looks into the  decline follows a surge in digital readership between December traditionally a weak month due to holidays and January during which coverage of the deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman will have attracted international readers. Only the Sun, which dropped its paywall at the end of November, and the Guardian recorded increases in daily average visitors during the month, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Thursday.

1. Average daily browsers

Advertisement

MailOnline 14,383,578 (-2.55%)
theguardian.com 8,872,392 (1.23%)
Telegraph 4,328,890 (-6.13%)
Mirror Group Nationals 4,195,021 (-13.01%)
The Independent 2,921,273 (-12.31%)
The Sun 2,046,792 (7.16%)
Metro 1,188,978 (-16.16%)
express.co.uk 1,176,494 (-15.94%)
dailystar.co.uk 685,769 (-23.92%)
Evening Standard 479,367 (-4.53%)
Print Circulation
The Sun 1,741,838 (-2.53%)
Daily Mail 1,562,361 (-1.71%)
Metro 1,347,505 (-0.04%)
Evening Standard 902,005 (0.4%)
Daily Mirror 791,839 (-2.14%)
The Daily Telegraph 472,936 (0.19%)
Daily Star 472,869 (0.53%)
Daily Express 413,140 (1.09%)
The Times 402,752 (-0.35%)
i 269,628 (-0.82%)
Financial Times 195,515 (-1.37%)
Daily Record 174,525 (-1.34%)
The Guardian 161,152 (-1.83%)
The Independent 54,187 (-1.82%)

2.  The Independent’s fall in average unique readers will be especially concerning as the paper is moving to a digital only future when it scraps its print editions this month. On Wednesday the independent launched a new subscription app costing £12.99.

3.  All the major national newspaper sites experienced year-on-year growth except Mail Online, which was down slightly by 2.2% but is still by far the largest site with an average of 14.4m unique browsers a day.

My opinion i believe that the newspaper industry by surviving should just have a online dgital media source as well.  I would also recommend them to get money from advertisements online as well which  would make it still survive as to promoting different adverts and it would run the newspaper online. They should be reporting the popular news to people such as celebrities or looking into what people would be interested in as to other than politics as well. If this cant be done then newspaper industry will go down.

Independent NDM case study: Up-to-the-minute web research

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/15/paramount-hasbro-gi-joe-toy-movie-universe



Paramount Pictures and Hasbro announced a new deal that will see the studio and Allspark Pictures, Hasbro’s film label, build a similar cross-property onscreen universe, featuring popular characters from five of the toy company’s brands: GI Joe, Micronauts, Visionaries, Mask (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) and ROM. Brad Grey, Paramount chairman and CEO, said in a statement: “Hasbro and Allspark Pictures put storytelling at the center of everything that we do. These brands are filled with memorable stories and vivid characters, and this universe creates a framework for how they will become interconnected. Extending our partnership with Paramount allows us to continue our long-term strategy and overall vision to build dynamic worlds for all of our brands, and we are thrilled to collaborate with them as we develop these properties.”A fifth Transformers film is planned for release in 2017, with star Mark Wahlberg returning to the franchise. Director Michael Bay has yet to confirm his participation.As for the GI Joe films, a third was announced in 2013, but’s it’s unknown whether this new deal will change those plans.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/21/terminator-sequel-paramount-removed-2017-release-schedule


scheduled a new Terminator 3 for June 2018, as North American rights to the franchise would revert to series creator James Cameron in 2019. The studio is now pinning its franchise hopes on the continuation of the Star Trek, Mission: Impossible and Transformers films. This year will also see a reimagining of video horror The Ring, hope for some JJ Abrams’ magic in spin-off 10 Cloverfield Lane and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.The studio is also hoping its Baywatch adaptation will appeal to younger audiences unfamiliar with the original, bringing in Zac Efron as Johnson’s co-star.global pick-up (it made around $350m outside the US) meant that a new Terminator 2 still seemed like a possibility.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/20/netflix-film-studios-lawsuit-song-captioning-deaf-skyfall


Netflix and film studios face lawsuit over song captioning for deaf, The streaming service, Disney, Fox, Universal, Warner Bros and Paramount have been accused of discrimination against the deaf for failing to caption songs in films such as Skyfall. Studios including Disney, Netflix, Fox, Universal, Warner Bros and Paramount have been hit with a lawsuit accusing the companies of discrimination against the deaf and hearing impaired, according to the Wrap.The suit alleges that films advertised by the studios with the option of captions or subtitles are incomplete as song lyrics are not included. “While the dialogue of some movies or shows are indeed fully subtitled, the practice of not subtitling song/music lyrics is frustratingly widespread,

The complainants cited the Captain America films, Selma and Skyfall as recent examples of films that have included incomplete captioning. The studios have yet to comment on the suit, though it’s thought that the tendency to remove lyrics from captioning is due to a successful lawsuit against Disney in 1992, which claimed that reproduction of lyrics for their sing-a-long VHS tapes was a breach of copyright. Traditionally extra permissions are required from the song’s rights holder for the use of lyrics on-screen. “It is encouraging to see the issue of incomplete captioning in popular, mainstream films has been highlighted,” said Dr Terry Riley, chairman of the British Deaf Association. “We believe that anyone who purchases a cinema ticket should have full access and this includes captions. The cost of the subtitles is minimal and far outweighs any potential loss of income”.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/24/channing-tatum-gi-joe-rise-of-cobra-forced-studio


Channing Tatum has said he was forced to star in toy-themed blockbuster GI Joe: the Rise of Cobra after signing a three-picture deal early in his career, prior to finding wider fame with Magic Mike. The 35-year-old actor, who was named as the second-highest-paid actor in the world in 2013, told US radio DJ Howard Stern he was told in no uncertain terms by Paramount to take the title role or risk legal reprisals. “Look, I’ll be honest. I fucking hate that movie. I hate that movie,” said Tatum, who is currently promoting sequel Magic Mike XXL.

 “I was pushed into doing that movie. From Coach Carter, they signed me to a three-picture deal … They give you the contract and they go, ‘Three-picture deal, here you go.’ And as a young [actor], you’re like, ‘Oh my god, that sounds amazing, I’m doing that!’“Time goes by and you get other jobs and you’re building your quote and you have a dream job you want to do. And … the studio calls up and they’re like, ‘Hey, we got a movie for you, we’re going to send it to you.’ And they send it to you, and it’s GI Joe.“And I love GI Joe: ‘Can I play Snake Eyes?’ And they’re like, ‘No, you’re not playing Snake Eyes, you’re playing GI Joe.’”

Tatum added: “The script wasn’t any good … And I didn’t want to do something that I … was a fan of since I was a kid and watched every morning growing up — and didn’t want to do something that was, one, bad and, two, I just didn’t know if I wanted to be GI Joe.”Asked if there might have been a way to avoid taking on the movie, Tatum replied: “No option: ‘You’re doing this or we’re gonna sue you.’”

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/26/shutter-island-hbo-tv-series-martin-scorsese



The hit Martin Scorsese film starring Leonardo DiCaprio is to be developed into a TV series, with Scorsese directing the pilot episode, and Dennis Lehane writing the script. HBO and Paramount are teaming up to produce a TV version of Martin Scorsese’s 2010 film Shutter Island, Deadline reports. The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a US marshal investigating the disappearance of a psychiatric patient from an island hospital, was a classy chiller that grossed nearly $300m worldwide. The series, tentatively named Ashecliffe after the hospital the film is set in, would be a prequel, exploring the stories of its founders.Scorsese is in line to direct the pilot episode, which will be scripted by Dennis Lehane, the crime writer who wrote the novel that Shutter Island is based on Lehane also wrote Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, each of which were also adapted into films.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2014/apr/11/the-truman-show-paramount-jim-carrey-tv-series



Monkey isn't quite sure how to explain this one, but rumours abound that Paramount is planning to turn its Jim Carrey hit The Truman Show into a television series. So, that's a TV series about a film about a TV series … or something. This follows news that Fargo is also set to be made into a small-screen venture. Paramount executive Amy Powell told US blog The Wrap: "We have three buckets of content we're looking at which has been around for over 100 years." It's a bit early for Monkey to be thinking about looking at the 100-year-old contents of a bucket, but it goes some way to explaining where some programme-makers might get their ideas from.

Independent NDM case study: Media Factsheet research

Star Trek (Paramount pictures)

-Star Trek is one of the most successful media franchises of all time. Created by Gene Roddenberry, it has been on our screens, at home or in cinemas, in one form or another since the 1960s.

- Star Trek franchise in general, contextual terms and to identify its position in media history.

- Star Trek has reached audiences through five television series, upwards of 24 console games and 12 ‘official’ films. It has been the inspiration behind countless magazines, websites, fan fiction novels and movies, YouTube spoofs, animations and a whole host of other media - even inspiring a number of hit singles.

- Promoting militarism and American expansionist values, it also promoted liberal attitudes, particularly regarding race and gender. To include a Russian (Chekov) as the helmsman at the height of the Cold War.

- Deeply controversial during this time of great racial tension in the states; never more so than when the show depicted the first African-American/white inter-racial kiss on US television.

-The rise in DVD box set sales has changed the landscape for television drama:
• More complex narratives can be attempted as it is no longer important to ensure that broadcast episodes can be missed without losing the idea of the plot’s development.
• Stories that cater to adults can be very profitable as they are likely to invest in the costly purchase of a box-set
• Institutions are likely to invest in more challenging ideas as there are several ways for them to make their money back rather than simply relying on large television audiences bringing in advertising revenue

- Star Trek provided an opportunity, not simply to revisit the Trek universe to tell new stories but to restart the franchise

-Genre theory tells us that there is a tension within genre texts: retell the same story and meet audience expectations of the genre too precisely and the audience will get bored, but deviate too far away from the traditional codes and conventions and the audience will feel alienated and unable to connect to the text. In the expansion of Star Trek over the decades the franchise had become thinly stretched and tired.

- Tell their story again from the beginning - going back slightly further in the character biographies than had been covered by the television series. Actors who resembled the original actors were cast (and in places could be identified delivering lines in ways very similar to their predecessors).

- (Difference with the old to the new) film series was not restricted to events and relationships that had been set up in previous versions of Star Trek, the events that took place in Star Trek (2009) were shown to be part of an alternative timeline.

Convergence and synergy in the film industry

-Company owning more than one step in the supply process of a particular product. For example, the supply process of a film would include production (making),distribution (marketing) and exhibition (showing the film).

-The concept of synergy is closely linked to convergence as the ‘coming together’ of the separate companies associated with different technologies within a conglomerate allow for synergy to happen. Synergy is the process through which media products derived from the same text are promoted in and through each other and throughout the subsidiaries of a media conglomerate.

- E-media subsidiaries
The online versions of the reviews in the Sun and the Times featured on the publications’
websites also included links to the Avatar trailer. In addition, MySpace Video (MySpace is
also owned by News Corporation) hosted a teaser trailer for the film in High Definition and
there was an official MySpace profile that included the trailer for Avatar’s theatrical run and
later the TV spots promoting the Blu-ray and DVD release.

The Romantic Comedy Film Genre

Rom-coms and audiences


-The tropes within the rom-com genre revolve around emotional intelligence, communication and expressing feelings. As these are stereotypically female attributes, the feminised genre is often considered as a guilty pleasure.

-These films satisfy an audience because they offer uncomplicated and easy to access pleasures, due to the heavy referencing to relationships, light-hearted subject matter, and inevitably idealist representations and narrative outcomes.

-All rom-coms will hold an emphasis on the aspirational love story, and the plausibility of this is a crucial factor to the success of the film. If we consider the audience theories of Blumler & Katz (Uses & Gratifications) or Dyer’s Utopian solutions, it is clear that rom-coms in their traditional form offer clear gratifications of entertainment, personal identification, escapism and narrative transparency. However, it is necessary to consider how audience needs have evolved and how this affects the narrative structures, tropes and representations.

Rom-coms and modern ideological values

-The traditional rom-com offers an idealist approach to our societal ideologies. In this approach all couples are heterosexual and attractive, everyone achieves successful with relative ease, and couples who do engage in sexual relationships can only do so because the narrative is headed toward monogamy and/ or matrimony. However, as societal values change, so do the media texts that seek to reflect them.

The future of the genre…

-As values and ideologies change and respond to the societies that form them, so too will the media texts that are produced. The romantic comedy continues to be a highly popular genre, however the increasing use of unconventional narratives juxtaposed with the tropes and generic conventions makes this a genre which is moving away from simple, idealist representations of gender and form, into a category of film that is worth more detailed consideration. However, it may not be possible to move too far from the tropes of romance that underpin the narrative. After all, without a happy ending, would it still be a Rom-com?

British Films

-British Film and Censorship The custodian of censorship and classification in the UK for the last 100 years has been the British Board of Film Classification, (the BBFC). Although when first created in the early decade of the 20th century the BBFC originally stood for the British Board of Film Censorship which tells you a little about how attitudes toward film have changed in the UK over time. All British and imported foreign films have been subject to censorship and classification by the BBFC according with the social, cultural and political trends and beliefs at the times at which the films were made and considered by the BBFC.

-Difficult to label a film as British, however those few films that can be labelled as British are so because of the content and focus on British culture. This is the first step towards targeting and appealing to a British audience as with any film made by a country for its own populace. The main characteristics that can be identified as appealing to a native British audience would include; the actors, British actors tend to be clearly identifiable as British and will often be associated with a particular genre of British film, for example Hugh Grant having an association with British romantic comedies.

Identity and Film

- 12 Years A Slave tells the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in New York in 1841. He is kidnapped and sold into slavery in The South where he is passed between several owners who treat him with varying degrees of cruelty. The film won the academy award for best film in 2013 and was praised for its realistic depiction of slavery.

-Film also increasingly provides a mechanism for audiences to explore identities that have been hidden and marginalised. Gay and Trans people have often been absent from popular films or represented in stereotypical ways when they have appeared. For young people growing up and
identifying themselves as gay, the lack of film representations of homosexual characters can make it difficult for them to find role models to help them build an identity. Writing in 1991, Steven Harsin stated: “Most young men who are homosexual are not raised in an environment in which homosexual development is even recognized, much less encouraged. It is not unusual for men who have recently identified themselves as gay to not have any idea what being gay is all about”. Therefore, films representing gay characters and lifestyles are an invaluable resource for young people trying to make sense of their self concept.

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UK viewers doubled amount of time spent streaming TV in 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/10/brit-viewers-doubled-amount-of-time-spent-streaming-tv-in-2015

Typical British viewer last year watched about 77 minutes a week of shows on services such as Netflix and Amazon, although traditional TV is still king. this article is about the UK viwers have doubled with their streaming in 2015. While the growth rate in the popularity of the TV industry upstarts was impressive to the statistics as to last year. This was almost double the 40 minutes a week watched on average in 2014, according to a report published on Thursday by TV industry marketing body Thinkbox. This article overall showing that streaming has increased over the years and means a new era where will get new content only on Netflix or Amazon.

1. Subscription video-on-demand services such as Netflix only accounted for 4% of the 4 hours and 35 minutes per day – 32 hours per week – of video content the average person watched last year.

2. YouTube also continued to grow in popularity, with viewing up a third to 85 minutes a week on average, with the Google-owned video platform increasing its share of total viewing from 3.5% to 4.4% year on year.

3. YouTube disputes the figures claiming that viewing per week is significantly higher than the Thinkbox estimates, and that viewing growth is running at a rate of about 60% in the UK.

In my opinion i believe that the era of streaming will increase as to traditional TV viewing accounted for 76%, or three hours and 51 minutes per day, close to 28 hours per week. this would be because they are sitting down but with steaming you can watch netflix or amazon anywhere giving it the advantage. This would show that film industry will stream there movies online and on the cinema at the same time. This would be advantage because of convergence and the use of synergy however, the problem of this would be that people would just download for free making less money for the industries.

BBC News most trusted source for more than half of people in the UK

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/10/bbc-news-most-trusted-source-for-more-than-half-of-people-in-the-uk

In this article it addresses the YouGov survey commissioned by 38 Degrees shows 53% rank the BBC as their most-trusted news source and do not trust the government with its future. this article focuses on More than half of people in the UK regard the BBC as their most trusted source of news, according to a survey commissioned by campaign group 38 Degrees.The results of the poll, published on Thursday, also suggested more than half of people did not trust the government with the future of the BBC. This article would be giving the most trusted source is BBC as to getting more than half of the people in UK it is a free new source and this could be the reason of this.

1. A total of 1,731 people took part in the online survey between 24 and 25 February.

2. More than 177,000 38 Degrees members made individual submissions to the government’s charter review public consultation.

3. The BBC also ranked top when given a selection of non-broadcast sources of news. Half of respondents ranked it first as a trusted source of balanced and unbiased reporting, ahead of family members (18%), national broadsheet newspapers (11%), social media (5%) and national tabloids (2%).

From this article i can see why BBC news is a trusted source. this would be because its a free and a public service broadcaster to all. They give detailed stories to what people would want.in information. This would be that the BBC news are trusted by the people because they do not trust the government and there reasons was that they didn't know. The article is true because out of all true news BBC does this and doesn't have a pay-wall at the start as to newspaper industries. I think that BBC is a trusted source and its the oldest news station which is globally helped us with weather and news update around the world.

MEST3 NDM/Identity:indexes

1)Identities and the Media: Reading the riots

2)Identities: Post-colonial theory & blog tasks

3)Post-colonialism: Edward Said blog task

4) Identities and the Media: Feminism
5) Feminism: blog task

6) Class research task

7) Identities and Film: blog task
8) Collective identity: blog task

Adblocking: what are your reasons for blocking ads online?

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/04/adblocking-what-are-your-reasons-for-blocking-ads-online

Web users turn to adblockers to speed up page load times, but the software is criticised for robbing publishers of vital revenue. Earlier this week culture secretary John Whittingdale described adblocking as a “protection racket” and a real danger to areas of the media who rely on advertising. The counter argument is that publishers and newspapers have created this problem themselves by trying to maximise profit from digital visitors with increasingly obnoxious ad formats and more intrusive ways of tracking who has seen them. This article gives the in sight that it does create moeny still for the adblock and would be still an issue.

1. 22% of the UK’s internet users have an adblocker installed.

2. Figure rises to almost half for 18- to 24-year-olds.

3. We’d like to hear from people who regularly use adblockers. What are your main reasons for blocking online advertising with this software? Have publishers gone too far with digital ads? What other methods to build online audiences and revenue do you think would be more productive? Or do you agree with John Whittingdale that “if people don’t pay in some way for content, then that content will eventually no longer exist”? This would be a questionnaire that are doing which can be answered.

Its good to be asking the views of this as to is it a problem if money is being put into this. Its still giving the affect of not getting ads randomly popping up. I believe the page speeding up and yes it is taking the money but it still a positive for the consumers because we are getting what wanted. Its protection as to not wanting adverts from coming over and over. overall i believe it is good and i believing this article is good for asking for opinions.

Rupert Murdoch's (maybe) farewell to Twitter is the end of an era

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/04/rupert-murdoch-twitter-farewell-final-tweet

On Friday, the News Corp founder signed off the microblogging service, possibly for ever, thus ending his run of making news simply by stating his opinions  The article explains that Rupert Murdoch is quitting twitter. He tweeted saying 'No more tweets for ten days or ever! Feel like the luckiest AND happiest man in world.' The “or” leaves some hope for his 745,000 fans. But if this is it, he will be missed. The 84-year-old founder of News Corporation often made headlines simply by expressing his opinion on the news of the day.

1. Now the octogenarian has found happiness in the arms of a former supermodel, Murdoch clearly isn’t feeling the need of Twitter. Love needs more than 140 characters. Farewell Rupert, the subtweeters will miss you.

2. He was also changeable – his disdain for Donald Trump transformed into something like grudging acceptance over the course of Trump’s campaign as Murdoch, with the rest of the world, gradually came around to the idea that the Las Vegas hotelier’s bid for the US presidency was more than a lengthy gag.

3. He paid attention to the news closer than most, and he always supported the home team, especially the old-style newspapermen and -women who had helped to sell his products, especially those with an eye for a catchy front page.

Twtter is where we all express our opinions and i believe we should share our views and if we dont agree we can debate. I believe him not tweeting does not make a difference as they're will be people like him and i believe that there will be people with the same ideology making no different in the social media of twitter.

Independent NDM case study: Media Magazine research

Notes and quotes

Media magazine 40:

-Games being turned into movies

-video game developers have stolen many a great tale from under Hollywood’s nose, and every effort made to adapt one, the recent Max Payne (Moore, 2008), for example, has been a royal stuff-up. It’s true that games have always strived for the feel of cinema. I remember playing Chase The Express as an eager pre-teen and thinking how cool it was to control the lone soldier caught amid a train siege. Even at their crudest, games have sought to replicate the thrills of a cinematic adventure like Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988), but personally, don’t see them attempting to become movies . They’re trying to fill in the narrative gaps that movies just don’t have time to consider. 

-Particularly of Far Cry 2, which pits the player into the middle of an African nation consumed by civil war. In cinema the protagonist would be tasked with bringing down the oppressive regime, and within a 120-minute timeframe they would do so and the focus must always be on action, as within this constrained timeframe there is little room for politics or character development. The game features a real-time day/night cycle, genuine weapon degradation and no HUD (Heads-Up Display) to guide the player, instead demanding a crinkly old paper map be used to get from Point A to Point B. In so many action movies we see the character outnumbered and outgunned, forced to improvise in impossible scenarios. We know they’ll always make it.

-This would be talking about the movie industry running out of narrative ideas that they change it to the point of changing games into movies. From the media magazine it gives the information that movies don't have the uniqueness and this would be showing that its all about the money with the industry because all new narrative is hard to find. 

Media magazine 44:

-Is hollywood out of ideas

-Hollywood is a business made up of profit-driven studios; small subsidiaries of multinational conglomerates that care little for the art of film. Their purpose is to succeed in a capitalist marketplace; survival, growth and competition.Box office sales are the key to big profits.They spend big money to ensure they will deliver the biggest spectacles: cutting-edge special effects, globally recognisable stars,and locations that span the world and promise the biggest sets money can buy.

-The recent Avengers film appeared to be the pinnacle, with numerous characters already set up in their own films teaming up in one mega-movie, but now Marvel are working on their second phase, with new films for all the individual characters, led by the darker looking Iron Man 3 out this year.

Twilight is a teen literature adaptation, again showing Hollywood’s love of taking properties with an existing fan base (see also Harry Potter and The Hunger Games). Horror has most recently replayed found-footage films on an endless loop ever since the success of Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity.

-lack of imagination and desperation to jump on the bandwagon are vampire films spurned on by the

success of the Twilight saga. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Stake Land,Let Me In (itself a remake) and, of course,an inevitable parody, Vampires Suck,all emerged recently, cashing in on the

renewed popularity of the creatures of the night (or just Hollywood’s desperation to suck every last 

drop of cash from them).

- Hollywood executives analyse the market to see what works, what sells and what they can imitate, steal or build on to capitalise on current market trends. Genres, cycles and trends can all overlap. For example, in the wake of Scream in the late 90s, a revived cycle of similar self-aware slasher films was produced. Trends that are clearly popular at the moment and currently exploited by Hollywood are the superhero cycle of films, and particularly since Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, the tendency for superhero films to get darker in theme and tone. Three of the Top Ten films of 2012 are superhero movies. The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises took the top spots and the rebooted The 

Amazing Spiderman also made the Top Ten.The Dark Knight Rises and its seriously dark themes and subject matter that reflect post 9/11 terrorism anxiety (see page 37) seems to have fed into the production of 2013’s Man of Steel Superman update, judging by the teaser trailer.

-Not only does Hollywood appear to be out of ideas and looking to other mediums for sources of inspiration but they are also determined to milk every last good idea for the maximum profit.

-Hollywood has begun plundering its own back catalogue in earnest, as well as seeking out popular world cinema films which, because of subtitling, will not make money at the US box office. So though the French film The Intouchables did great business around the world, Hollywood is already

preparing a remake to cash in on the American audience. The Dark Knight trilogy is itself a reboot of an already successful Batman franchise that lasted four films and, as mentioned earlier, it took Spiderman only five years to be rebooted after the original trilogy finished in 2007. The Star Trek franchise was recently rebooted to great success, and horror classic Evil Dead is being remade this year, the latest in a long line of classic horrors being remade for amodern audience by an industry short on fresh ideas.

- Foreign language favourites are continually remade by Hollywood withrespected directors like Martin Scorsese  (The Departed) and David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) becoming

involved. Korean revenge flick Oldboy is also being remade this year by Spike Lee,suggesting that even successful directors are looking to previously produced scripts to make a buck. It is as sure a sign as any that Hollywood has nothing left to offer the world but exploitation of its past glories and

the success of original international ideas. Hollywood even celebrates its complete lack of originality by awarding Scorsese a Best Director Oscar for his remake of Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs.

- Television series, books, fairytales and video-games. With the video-games industry over taking Hollywood in income recently, Hollywood is keen to capitalise on this. Resident Evil: Retribution is the fifth film in a franchise based on the popular video-games. Every new entry in the series gets consistently panned by the critics, yet they continue to be extremely profitable with fans of the games. 21 Jump  Street made the Top Fifty of 2012 with its adaptation of an 80s television show starring Johnny Depp, while the first of what Paramount was no doubt hoping would become an extremely lucrative franchise, Jack Reacher, under-performed, suggesting this time there may not be a sequel. Not only does Hollywood appear to be out of ideas and looking to other mediums for sources of inspiration but they are also determined to milk every last good idea for the maximum profit. The Hobbit, a children’s book, has been adapted into a trilogy of films, to ensure revenue will pour in from this one idea for some time to come.

Media Magazine 45:

-In a film culture built on the online experience of accessing films (and other media such as books, games, music etc.) is that sense of having exchanged a limited sense of ‘coming attractions’, as listed in the cinema foyer, for a much wider range of recommendations of similar kinds of films, possibly all related to our own preferences. 

-Films were like novels and that we would choose carefully what we wanted to see, and would ‘read’ a film in the same way we would read a novel.

-There are many ways to access films on-line, ranging from the big brands like iTunes, Love Film and Netflix, with both fixed prices and subscription rates for rental or download, through to the pirate operations that offer bit-torrent downloads. The latter are, of course, illegal, which we can’t condone but we must consider whether the thrill of watching something illegally acquired actually becomes part of the reading experience. This is also linked to the sense of superiority we tend to feel if we see something before everyone else, or our smugness when we get to see something for free that we know many people have paid to watch.

Media magazine 47:

-The anti-piracy groups, is the loss of revenue. From their perspective every view of a stream equals a lost cinema ticket, Blu-ray sale or subscription to a legitimate source such as Netflix or Amazon. We can see how this might pan out with a specific example If we take one of 2012’s most illegally downloaded films, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (reportedly 8.5 million torrent file downloads) and search for it on Primewire, it produces a list of 26 file hosting sites and presents a total view count of about 305,000. Small potatoes compared with the downloads. But if we assume that each of those 305,000 views is a lost cinema ticket or Blu-ray sale, we can estimate the loss of revenue to the industry to be somewhere between £2 million and £4.5 million, which is somewhat less insignificant.

-With UK cinema admissions steadily rising, it seems difficult to argue that the UK film exhibition industry is suffering from the impact of piracy.

-The prime motivator for audiences to access unauthorised streams of content is immediacy. For example, in the UK the only way to watch The Walking Dead is on Fox HD, which requires a subscription to Sky. The problem for UK audiences is that this runs about one whole season behind the US schedule. In this way the programme is a victim of its own success; audiences just can’t get it fast enough.

-Marvel universe  first time in cinematic history,fans know what films they will be getting from a studio six or seven years into the future, and are being prepared for it long in advance where studies dont have a time table. having this time table makes fans of the marvel universe spend their money more on the studio as to knowing the movies coming out.