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Introduction to Postcolonialism: blog tasks

 1) Look at the first page. What is colonialism - also known as cultural imperialism?  i From the 16th century onwards, European countries effectively got into a race to see how many undiscovered lands they could conquer first, and by ‘undiscovered’ I mean, ‘countries where the indigenous population didn’t have good enough weapons to fight back’. Countries like France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Britain effectively turned into the seagulls from Finding Nemo, zipping around, shouting ‘MINE’ at every new piece of land they discovered. They fought and conquered the native populations and raiding their villages and city's for resources and often fought each other for the rights to those lands. With that came attitudes that are now collectively known as ‘cultural imperialism’ or ‘colonialism’ – the belief that native people were intellectually inferior, and that white colonizers had a moral right to subjugate the local populace as they were ‘civilizing’ them: in other wor...
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Score advert and wider reading

 Complete the following tasks and wider reading on the Score hair cream advert and masculinity in advertising. Media Factsheet - Score hair cream Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet #188: Close Study Product - Advertising - Score. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets. If you need to access this from home you can download it here if you use your Greenford login details to access Google Drive. Read the factsheet and answer the following questions: 1) How did advertising techniques change in the 1960s and how does the Score advert reflect this change? Ads required less marketing research and more creative  themes and ideas  as seen  from the adventure esque theme the score ad advert  had. 2) What representations of women were found in post-war British advertising campaigns? Ones aiming to make women feel useful in a more domestic setting such as  their homes...
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Gender, identity and advertising: blog tasks

 David Gauntlett: academic reading Read this extract from Media, Gender and Identity by David Gauntlett. This is another university-level piece of academic writing so it will be challenging - but there are some fascinating ideas here regarding the changing representation of men and women in the media. 1) What examples does Gauntlett provide of the "decline of tradition"? the shift from traditional gender roles (like the housewife) to more fluid and negotiated identities, and the use of media to construct and explore diverse identities, 2) How does Gauntlett suggest the media influences the way we construct our own identities? no matter which texts we choose to consume, there will certain representations of gender that will appeal to our own sensibilities.  3) What does Gauntlett suggest regarding generational differences? Is it a good thing that the media seems to promote modern liberal values?  He assumed there was a generational divide in attitudes towards gender roles,...
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Representations of women in advertising

  Academic reading: A Critical Analysis of Progressive Depictions of Gender in Advertising Read these extracts from an academic essay on gender in advertising by Reena Mistry. This was originally published in full in David Gauntlett's book 'Media, Gender and Identity'. Then, answer the following questions: 1) How does Mistry suggest advertising has changed since the mid-1990s? mistry suggests that adverts have increasingly made the gender of the person being photographed intentionally hard to determine. 2) What kinds of female stereotypes were found in advertising in the 1940s and 1950s? Women were made to feel guilty for  having their own careers and lives after the war through advertisement propaganda and the  highest value for a  women lied in their ability to keep the house and raise children  this mainly done as men want their jobs back after WW2 as after they returned  their formers  roles were lost as women were doing them so they had nothing to...
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Introduction to advertising: blog tasks

 1) How does the Marmite Gene Project advert use narrative? Apply some narrative theories here. Binary opposition is used in the advert as they say you are either a lover or hater the brand uses this to it's advantage to therefore market the product and subsequently connect with their target audience.  2) What persuasive techniques are used by the Marmite advert?  The advert persuade their target audience to agree with a point of view saying  to take the test to see if you are a  hater of marmite. 3) Focusing specifically on the Media Magazine article, what does John Berger suggest about advertising in ‘Ways of Seeing’? He says that  All publicity works on anxiety and that advertising offers us an improved version of ourselves,  4) What is it psychologists refer to as referencing? Which persuasive techniques could you link this idea to? The buyer is meant to imagine themselves transformed by the product, as it's supposed to offer them an image of ...
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'Media Assessment 2 learner response'

 1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential). Mark 24 /43 Grade   C   Feedback: Good range of theories referenced  but  Gerbner was overlooked  and no   real sense of a debate  or argument needs to be  more developed   2) Read the mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Identify at least one potential point that you missed out on for each question in the assessment. Q1 the image has Stormzy bare-chested which arguably reinforces the sexualization's of black males in the media and reinforces traditional masculine stereotypes which contrasts with the idea of vulnerability. The lighting is low-key and sees a focus on both the left side of his face and chest, emphasizing these contrasting meanings of masculinity and vulnerability. Q2 - Synergy - Synergy allows companies to  maximize profit from a brand (e.g. Harry Potter) by branching out into...
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Ideology

 Media Magazine issue 52 has two good articles on Ideology. You need to read those articles (our Media Magazine archive is here) and complete a few short tasks linked to them.  Page 34: The World Of Mockingjay: Ideology, Dystopia And Propaganda 1) Read the article and summarise it in one sentence.   The Hunger Games films are  commentary on celebrity life and their  culture presented through the scope of a dystopian world. 2) What view of capitalist ideology is presented in the Hunger Games films? The Districts work to provide resources and other means of production for the capital  and the earn no profit from it . This aligns with Karl Marx's view that the Proletariat work tirelessly for the Bourgeoisie and in the end don't benefit from  it due to the structure of the social hagiarchy and how the upper classes view the lower class and districts  3) What do the Hunger Games films suggest about the power of the media to shape and influence ideologi...
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