Cover photos in Women's Magazines

Cover Photos in Women’s Magazines

Marjorie Ferguson (1980, 227) identified four types of facial expression in the cover photos of British women’s magazines.

1.     ‘Chocolate Box’: half or full smile, lips together or slightly parted, teeth barely visible, full or three-quarter face to camera. Projected mood: blandly pleasing, warm bath warmth, where uniformity of features in their smooth perfection is devoid of uniqueness or of individuality.

2.     ‘Invitational’: emphasis on the eyes, mouth shut or with only a hint of a smile, head to one side or looking back to camera. Projected mood: suggestive of mischief or mystery, the hint of contact potential rather than sexual promise, the cover equivalent of advertising’s soft sell.

3.     ‘Super-smiler’: full face, wide open toothy smile, head thrust forward or chin thrown back, hair often wind-blown. Projected mood; aggressive, ‘look-at-me’ demanding, the hard sell, ‘big come-on’ approach.

4.     ‘Romantic or Sexual’: a fourth and more general classification devised to include male and female ‘two-somes’; or the dreamy, heavy-lidded, unsmiling big-heads, or the overtly sensual or sexual. Projected moods: possibly ‘available’ and definitely ‘available’.

5.    

Source: Marjorie Ferguson, ‘The Woman’s Magazine Cover Photograph’. In Harry Christian (Ed.) (1980): The Sociology of Journalism and the Press (Sociological Review Monograph 29). Keele: University of Keele, pp. 219-38

LifeStyle Magazines

                                      LIFESTYLE MAGAZINES

This is one of the most popular and competitive areas of the magazine publishing market.

Lifestyle and consumer magazines are second only in terms of consumer sales to the television listings magazines (such as What's on TV and Radio Times), but the lifestyle market has many more titles competing for its readers.

On pp.111-12 we talked about 'narrowcasting': as new magazines come on to the market they are increasingly trying to narrow down the market and provide advertisers with more and more specific reader 'profiles'.

Narrowcasting – offering more specific reader profiles.

Like most newspapers the revenue which lifestyle magazines get from advertising is far more important than the income they receive from the cover price and individual sales. It is estimated that women spend £230 million a year on monthly 'glossies' and that the magazines 'earn' another £190 million from advertising.

Balance between Readership/Circulation/Advertsing

'Lifestyle' is a very broad category that can include FHM, (Gardener’s World or Woman's Realm. However, all these magazines are trying to do the same thing, using a consumerist ideology based on particular lifestyles to deliver particular groups of audiences to advertisers.

          What would Marx or the Frankfurt School say?

We need to consider what the term 'lifestyle' means.

What is it that these magazines offer their readers?

On the surface they seem to offer:

·        information and advice about certain types of 'lifestyle':

·        what products to buy; where to buy them;

·        the types of goods and services that might be available to someone leading that particular 'lifestyle'.

Lifestyle magazines often offer their readers not only advice but also a sense of identity and possibly companionship and reassurance.

 What theory would best describe this?

They appear to share with their readers the problems and issues of other similar people who also read the magazine.

The magazines also appear to offer guidance and instruction on how to live a particular lifestyle as well as entertainment and escapism. The magazines also offer aspiration in a variety of different spheres, such as relationships, careers, material possessions or looks.

One of the attractions of lifestyle magazines is that they are usually a secondary media and require little effort or concentration to consume.

          What do I mean by secondary?

They are designed to be 'browsed' through, with regular features signposted and articles and advertisements designed to attract the reader's attention. They carry a unique visuality – pleasing on the eye easy on the brain.

These magazines will possibly be kept until the next edition arrives and so may be left lying around a home for some time. Price demands a higher priority on possession than a newspaper.

The magazines will therefore be looked at several times by the same reader or glanced through by new readers.

Readers may have different patterns of reading magazines, perhaps when they do not want to be disturbed and can go somewhere quiet or perhaps in the mornings over a cup of coffee.

The readership of a magazine is as important its circulation.

The readership of magazines aimed particularly at one market may have a significant number of readers from another market, i.e. the men who read women's magazines.

Sometimes this is done 'secretly', as some men are reluctant to admit that they enjoy reading some of the features of women's magazines or they may only admit to reading the problem pages.

There may be an element of titillation and vicarious pleasure from gaining glimpses of other people's sex lives. Sometimes this reading may be more open, for example, the Letters Page in the July 2000 edition of Red included a contribution from a man, and some magazines have included sections aimed specifically at male readers.

                                      ACTIVITY

Ask a selection of your peers how they 'consume' magazines.

·   Do they have a particular pattern to how and when they read?

·   Does it vary for different types of magazine?

Do they read magazines aimed at the opposite sex.?

·   Do men 'confess' to reading women's magazines? Which ones? What, if any, particular aspects of the women's magazines do they look at?

·   Do women read men's magazines? Which ones? What particular features interest them?

·   Are women influenced by the articles supposedly addressed to the opposite sex?

'Lifestyle' magazines are primarily consumer magazines that aim to make a profit by 'selling' particular types of audience to advertisers.

The magazines are offering their readers literally a 'lifestyle': in other words a model on which to base their lives at this particular moment and the goods necessary to accommodate it.

In postmodern times social identity is now a far bigger social factor than class. Many people’s identity is tied up with their consumption. What the Frankfurt school refer to as psuedo-individuality or as Marcuse would say One Dimensional Man [sic]

To do this successfully, magazines need to be able to make their readers identify with the lifestyle on offer, but at the same time offer them slightly more than they may already have.

The magazines offer both guidance and aspiration: 'You, too, can be like this if only you do this/buy that', etc.

The way this works for successful magazines is to have a clear sense of the target audience, Ang's 'imaginary entity' (p.121), and to adopt an appropriate mode of address.

Ang discusses the manner in which media producers and institutions view audiences as an ‘imaginary entity’ as a mass rather than as a set of individuals. They will however, often have a ‘typical’ audience member in mind when they produce their texts.

'THE MOST FUN A GIRL CAN HAVE WITH HER CLOTHES ON!' - TEENAGE MAGAZINES

More! and J-17 are both commercially successful magazines aimed at teenage girls. They are notionally in competition with each other but in fact are both owned and published by EMAP.

They are both very carefully aimed at separate, distinctive niche markets defined by age.

This market is very competitive; and EMAP's Elan Youth group that is responsible for their teenage magazines has recently closed down two titles, Big! and Minx, because of falling sales.

They still publish Bliss, Looks and Smash Hits but are planning new Internet titles through EMAP Digital. It is estimated that 72 per cent of girls in the U K read magazines compared to 58 per cent of adult women.

                                     ACTIVITY

Discuss with others why you think that a magazine publisher may have more than one title aimed at a particular social group. Try to find examples, using the Internet or a magazine retailer.

Although the style of contemporary popular 'teen mags' may have moved away from the photo-stories of Jackie and My Guy, much of the content deals with similar issues, albeit in a more up-to-date manner.

McRobbie (1983), writing about the ideology underpinning Jackie, noted that it socialised female adolescents into a 'feminine' culture.

[Jackie] sets up, defines and focuses exclusively on the personal, locating it as the sphere of prime importance to the teenage girl. It presents this as a totality - and by implication all else is of secondary interest to the 'modern girl'. Romance problems, fashion, beauty and pop mark out the limits of the girl's concern - other possibilities are ignored or dismissed.

As McRobbie suggests, however, it is important to question the extent to which teenage readers accept or challenge this reading.

J-17

According to J-17, 'For the coolest fashion and hottest gossip, stylish babes read J-17'. With a circulation of over 300,000 and a readership of nearly three times that, J-1 7 is the most successful of the current 'teen mags'. It is aimed at 'aspirational' females, 'mature for their years', ABCls in the 12-17 age range.

Research by J-1 7 suggests that 'appearance and image are very important' for J-J 7 readers and that they are 'the highest spenders on toiletries/cosmetics within the youth market'.

J-1 7 readers wash their hair on average 4.4 times a week and in 1998 spent £6 a month on hair care and £19.55 a week on clothes, usually bought from places like Top Shop, Tammy, Miss Selfridge and River Island. Also in 1998 they spent on average £48.48 for a pair of trainers and £30 on a new pair of Jeans.

Advertising in J-1 7 reflects this profile with an emphasis on health and beauty products, fashion and music but also quite a lot of confectionery. Articles include 'how to cope with your parents' as well as fashion tips, star profiles, show-biz gossip and horoscopes, and are all presented on high-gloss full-colour paper.

Most of J-1 7's readers are under the legal age of consent, and a major part of J-i 7's attraction is its Problem Pages, where readers can not only 'speak for themselves' but also read about problems and issues that may also feature in their own lives and that they may have difficulty in discussing with their peers or family. The mode of address is personal, friendly and intimate. It is this area of the magazine that is perhaps the most 'reassuring'₁ saying to its readers 'you are not alone’ others are having similar problems and fears'. 'Typical' letters might read:

'I am not yet 16 and my boyfriend is several years older than me. We have been together for a year and been having sex for several months. He has asked me to take part in a bondage session with him and his friends. I like having sex with him but the thought of being tied up scares me. What should I do?'

'Recently I was caught by my mum snogging with my boyfriend. Now she says that she doesn't like us being alone together, and that I'm acting like a slut. But I haven't any plans for sex and I don't understand why my mum doesn't trust me.'

These types of feature have been the focus of a 'moral panic' over the last few years. There have been accusations that these magazines condone under-age sexual activity and seemingly endorse sexual promiscuity as well as offering a 'guide' to different sexual practices.

There have been calls for magazine editors to curb such sexually explicit content, although the editors and publishers have argued that they offer 'responsible' advice that their readers may otherwise not receive.

Consider issues of censorship.

         

More!

More! is EMAP's second most profitable title and has a circulation of around 300,000 sales per issue and a readership of 800,000 per issue. The target age of its readership is 16-24, of which 48 per cent are ABC1 and 75 per cent single.

More! describes itself as 'the biggest selling young women's magazine in the    U K'. According to the editor, More! is aimed at

every up-for-it young woman, because it's all about fun, flirting and looking gorgeous. With its cheeky humour, hunky men, sex advice and red-hot celebrity gossip, More! shoots straight from the hip. And with its glamorous new look and gorgeous fashion and beauty, More! is everything a sassy young woman wants from her life in handy magazine form. It's the most fun a girl can have with her clothes on'

They claim that '1% of More! readers go out 3-4 nights in an average week. Their ideal night out is round a friend's house for a good natter and make-up session, then to the local warm-up before going to a club to check out the totty.' More! readers shop at Top Shop, River Island, Warehouse, Oasis and Miss Selfridge; '47⁰/o are working in media, teaching, nursing and secretarial work'. Role models in 1997, when the readership was surveyed, were Anita Roddick, Gaby Roslin and Cindy Crawford.

The style and contents are similar to J-17, but the products are perhaps a little more 'up­market' (L'Oreal rather than Cote's Puzzel) and the articles are a little more 'serious' (teenage disappearances rather than parental unfairnesses).

The title itself is quite interesting - More! More what - Sex? Fashion? Advice? The More! editorial team would probably reply 'more Fun'. What that means is suggested by the strap-line 'Eye-Popping! Pant-Busting! Bed-Busting! The sex that changed YOUR lives' on the cover of the issue of 27 January 1999 and the regular 'Position of the Fortnight' feature.

According to Taylor, magazines like More! and J-17 are offering their readers a positive representation of themselves, reassuring the girl she is not alone or unusual'.

There is a 'theme of taking control of their lives, and living for themselves'. It is also a representation that shows that teenage girls are mature, independent, sensible and trustworthy - values that perhaps many of them feel are not recognised by the 'adult' world.

Part of the mode of address is to reinforce a sense of belonging and a type of solidarity against the unfairness of the world 'out there', a world that won't let them do want they want.

According to Taylor, magazines like More! and J-17 provide a teenage girl with 'a learning experience within the privacy of her own bedroom.

Whereby she can see and understand her peers, without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. Quite simply the teenage girl can learn about herself, and grasp the meaning of everything that is happening to her.

Key News Events Representing Islam

Key Events

Israeli Palestine conflict

Over throw of the Shah of Iran 1979

Shooting of Yvonne Fletcher and siege at Iranian embassy  1984

Bombing of Pan Am flight 103  1988

Gulf War (one)   1990-91

Bombing of Twin Towers   2001

Invasion of Afghanistan      2001

Invasion of Iraq    2003

London Bombings  2005

Death of Saddam Hussein   2006

Beheading of Ken Bigley  2009

Death of Osama   2011

‘Arab Spring’   2011  Tunisia, Egypt Libya

Death of Gaddafi  2011

Said, Orientalism. Notes

Orientalism  Edward Said

Said takes a structuralist approach to global politics and culture. He divides the world into the Occident and the Orient. Essentially West and East.

The Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien ("Other") to the West.

Said argues that every encoder of a text pertaining to the orient assumes what he calls an Oriental Precedent, ie some previous knowledge of the Orient to which s/he refers and on which s/he relies.

Orientalism is "a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases.

Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar and the strange ‘us and them’.
Said argues that writers like Flaubert, Nerval etc were constrained in what they could say or experience or say about the Orient – the decoders are further constrained by the encoders representation. It is not a conspiracy theory as such but a hegemony derived from an information imbalance.

The Oriental is the person represented by such thinking. The man is depicted as feminine, weak, yet strangely dangerous because poses a threat to white, Western women. The woman is both eager to be dominated and strikingly exotic. The Oriental is a single image, a sweeping generalization, a stereotype that crosses countless cultural and national boundaries.

Once conventional depictions of others become a hyper-real representation then how does an encoder make a representation without reference to a previous representation?

Ultimately then Said argues that every European who spoke of the orient was consequently a racist, an imperialist and almost totally ethnocentric.

Nietzsche once said that ‘truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are’

Masculinity

                             Masculinity

Increasingly, gender is not just an issue for feminists who wish to understand the processes that have made women lower in status than men in Western societies.

The debate has broadened out. Masculinity has become part of the contemporary discussion about gender roles.

Modern industrial society has changed rapidly and the position of men has been altered more than at any other time in recent history.

·        The decline in working-class industrial jobs,

·        increased female participation in employment,

·        the rise in divorce and

·        increased unemployment

Have all had a significant effect on what it means to he a man and/or masculine. Advances in technology, male contraception and continuing female equality are all creating new challenges for men in the new millennium.

Consequently a number of areas of significance need to he looked at:

·  Masculinity varies from society to society and appears to exaggerate biological potential in different ways (Gilmore, 1990). The social construction approach supports this relative concept of masculinity, with male gender roles varying across time and place.

   

    For example, for the Semai tribe of Malaysia our idea of masculinity would be out of place, because aggressive and selfish behaviour is taboo.

    Carrigan Ct al. (19S5) identified hegemonic and subordinate masculinities, the former being white, middle class, heterosexuals and the latter black, working class or gay.

    Therefore it would seem that not only is masculinity relative historically and between cultures, it is relative to a man's position in the stratification system of his own society.

·  Gender behaviour can he seen as a point on a continuum of behaviours rather than as two opposite ends of a spectrum. Masculinity is subject to change in line with social expectations, changes and demands.

    Men have been encouraged to look at alternative forms of behaviour and there was much media talk of the New Man who was in touch with his feelings and able to explore his feminine side.

    This is probably more myth than reality. However, men are now able to express themselves openly in forms that would have been completely unacceptable to the mid-twentieth-century working-class male.

·  There is a cultural dimension to this debate. Masculinity in the early days of the cinema was often characterised by the myth of the cowboy. To be a man, it was necessary to be inarticulate, careful of the feelings and sensibilities of women and to he driven by a sense of duty.

    Problems could he solved by the application of brute force and the good' man would often resort to fist fighting to prove his masculinity and the right of his

case. Gilmore (1990) has summed up this type of masculinity as having three characteristics:

    1   Man the impregnator - men are expected to

         compete for the attention of women.

    2   Man the provider - women need looking after

         especially once they are pregnant.

    3   Man the protector - men should protect their

         women and children against danger.

·  Beverley Skeggs (1991) and Bea Camphell (1995) argued more recently that working-class masculinity has changed to the point where it is defined in two ways.

     In the first, a male is a man because he is different from females. This means that working ­class males in particular need to express their masculinity by being ‘other’ or 'not female'. This leads them to reject anything they view as female behaviour.

They also point to the media image of masculinity that is offered as a role model for young males in terms of Robocop and the Terminator films.

In these films, men are defined as masculine by their ability to exert power and control over others, rather than their ability to care for and to protect the weak, which was so much an element of cowboy films.

·  Postmodern writers have pointed out that gender is better described in terms of a point on a scale rather than as two opposites.

    The traditional social differences have blurred so that it is acceptable for females to wear male clothing.

    Some males have pioneered the wearing of skirts and sarongs by men. The degree to which men are willing to accept the roles of females is probably overstated in our society.

    However, it is clear the male role has become more uncertain or ambiguous over time, both in the workforce and in the family unit.

On scrap paper which you must throw away at the end of the lesson, collect a series of terms of abuse for the following:

·  a masculine female

·  a feminine female

·  a masculine male

·  a feminine male.

It is probable that you were able to come up with far more terms of abuse, some very unpleasant, for the feminine male. This shows something significant. To adopt the perceived behaviour of a female in our society implies a significant loss of status for a male. It is difficult to think of abusive terms to describe a masculine male which do not also imply some form of admiration - think of the expression 'a right bastard' which can be used to suggest admiration as well as dislike.a

Binary Opposition

 

—Binary Opposition

Binary Opposition and Structuralism

‘Binary opposition’ is a subtle way in which texts are

Such uses and interpretations occur sub-consciously because both the creator and the user of the text are a part of a context that is permeated by certain ideological beliefs and mind-set (for a fuller, step-by-step guide to binary opposition as well as ideology visit http://www.englishbiz.co.uk/).

 

Spotting how binaries act to create layers of meaning allows you to create a highly subtle analysis and discussion (including on texts you write yourself) – and remember that subtlety always gains the highest marks.

The idea originated as part of an important ‘theory of meaning’ that attempted to map out how people arrive at an interpretation of either

 any concept of what we call reality) can exist only at the level of idea.

At the core of this is the recognition that any meaning we attribute to a thing can neither be inherent in the thing itself nor be something we arrive at independently; instead, meaning must always be, at least in part, a ‘construct’ and a ‘given’, i.e. something we learn from others.

According to structuralism,

what they called its cultural or ‘

 

When we interpret a thing, therefore, we arrive at an understanding of it not

This will become more obvious if you work through the process of interpretation you yourself will be using for some everyday words and ideas. Take the word ‘hero’, for example. You should be able to recognise that your interpretation very much depends on several other meanings of associated

ideas and words – most especially of course, the idea of ‘coward’. But – and this is a very large ‘but’ – other cultural ideas also come into play and contribute to this word’s very complex and layered meaning. For example, seemingly unrelated or distant ideas of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ have

an important part to play. Thus, an innocent-seeming word like ‘hero’ carries with it a great deal of ‘cultural baggage’ and ideological power: it acts to maintain and reinforce a whole series of cultural values, including many stereotypical ones – the dominance of masculine values, for one!

by any positive attribution of meaning to the thing itself but through a system of differences between culturally ‘opposing’ ideas.

Barthes suggested that

 

What cultural values do the above binary pairs help to maintain?

Can you see how these work to reinforce cultural stereotypes that are at odds with an advanced and enlightened society such as our own?

Jacques Derrida

A later theorist, Jacques Derrida, took Barthes and Levi-Strauss’s ideas a stage further by recognising that these ‘binary pairs’ were

rendered it the less highly valued part of the binary pair.

One example Derrida gave was the culturally important ‘masculinity/femininity’ binary. Freudian psychoanalytical theory (named after the early 20

highly than feminine values. Of course, such valuations are highly judgmental and work to maintain cultural stereotypes.

These theories provide you with a subtle way to analyse and discuss important aspects related to the way texts of all kinds are interpreted and gain meaning.

Consider these cultural binary pairs: ‘strength/weakness’, ‘wealth/poverty’, ‘male/female’, ‘gay/straight’, ‘hi-tech/lo-tech’, ‘old/young’ for example and you should soon detect how important the idea of binary opposition really is. One powerful cultural binary association studied by feminists is the oddly labelled ‘Madonna/whore’ binary in which women tend to be characterised in either of these two ways. This is seen as an especially powerful cultural opposition that works to support stereotypical views of women in societies that perpetuate male domination or patriarchy.

never equal. He saw that within any particular culture, one ‘side’ of each binary pair tended to be valued or judged in a more privileged light. It was as if one half of each binary pair were somehow ‘culturally marked’ by a kind of ‘presence’ that made it more highly valued whereas its binary opposite was ‘marked’ by a kind of ‘absence’ thatth Century psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud) proposed the idea that ‘man’ has historically – and stereotypically – been ‘marked’ by a positive ‘presence’, whereas the idea of ‘woman’ has been ‘marked’ by a negative ‘absence’. This works its way through to the ways in which society still often values certain masculine values more

all meaning operates in this way but for your purposes you should stick to those meanings that work only to reinforce a particular ideological mind-set, i.e. meanings that work to maintain, develop or reinforce key cultural ideas. Think of ‘binaries’ such as ‘cool/geeky’, ‘old/young’, ‘beauty/ugliness’ and the importance of this idea might become clear. There are thousands more.

anything that acts to signify meaning – objects from reality, words, ideas and images – can do so only through a process akin to symbolism, i.e. the meaning will, in important ways, be culturally derived (rather like a rose can connote, at a symbolic level, ‘romance’). Levi-Strauss and Barthes went on to realise that meaning, in fact, results from a complex association of ideas about the thing itself plus other ideas that are the thing’s ‘cultural opposite’,binary opposite’.

Levi-Strauss and Barthes were fascinated by Saussure’s realisation that meaning (and thus

reality or ideas. The theory began life in the early 20th century with the work of linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure. Much later, these ideas were developed by two leading French philosophers, Claude Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes who incorporated Saussure’s ideas into an all-encompassing theory of meaning called structuralism.

subconsciously interpreted by readers and listeners. The existence of ‘binaries’ within a text (and they exist in all texts) acts to develop often powerful layers of meaning that work to maintain and reinforce a society or culture’s dominant ideologies.

A2 Media BLOG Post Worklist

Brief
A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with a film magazine front cover, featuring the film and a poster for the film.

I will update this post weekly so you can keep up to date

1) Send me a link to your A2 Blog

2) Pitching a film. The lesson handout should inform a research section on your BLOG. The lesson should also inform an audience feedback section on your BLOG telling the examiner how particular ideas were received by potential audiences.

3) Planning (storyboard, mind map etc) for a practice short film. This should go in your planning section.

4) The practice film should be complete and ready for a screening and audience feedback

all this should have been achieved before the summer break.

9th September

5) Post up two Production Case Studies - demonstrating why you think the film was made

6) Should have put this up first - you need a diary charting your progress. I suggest you add a weekly comment - what you've achieved and what you plan to do the following week. This should have the label 'planning'

7) Linking to point 5. Having identified reasons as to why you thought the film would be made upload the trailer and see if the distributors highlighted the key features you identified.

8) Post up the video of you presentation and audience feedback

9) You should also upload your presentation is some format. Let the examiner know how the feedback is going to feed into the planning of the actual shoot.

10) you need under a research label to post up a detailed analysis of a trailer or two using the framework I e mailed you. This analysis needs to be semiotic and engage with appropriate film language.

11) Post up an outline of the role and purpose of the film distribution using the notes from today's lesson (3/10/11) This should be labelled 'research'. Make it interesting to look at adding some visuals.

12) Post up some research into film exhibition - use notes e mailed on 13/10/11. This will give you a good opportunity to add in some graphs with reference to cinema attendance, cinema screens and age and gender profile of audiences. It would be worth connecting this research to your identified target audience. Is your trailer promoting a commercial or arthouse film? (Research and Target Audience)

13) use the following link exit polls to demonstrate you understanding of the different ways in which people find out about film and indeed why they choose to go and watch it. Remember you are going to also produce a film poster (above the line costs) and a magazine front cover featuring you film (below the line costs) (Research and Target Audience)

14) early footage with audience feedback should now have been posted. This entails a video upload with three comments from fellow student. On the basis of this feedback you should make a summative comment and suggest any tweaking of the project in the light of this feedback. Audience feedback is crucial to the examiner. label planning, audience feedback

15) You should now have a number (at least 3) postings about audience feedback. This should be presented in a variety of ways. It should be clear to the examiner how this feedback has informed the production process.

16) I'd recommend you start exploring some film magazines (Empire and Sight and Sound) to name but two. You can then post up some research into front covers and produce a mock up for your front cover.

17) Now that your final trailer productions are posted can I recommend you find interesting ways of showing them and gaining feedback from amongst your peers.

18) Film Poster and Magazine cover
Process

Research into similar products. Try and consider the relationship between Trailer, Magazine and Poster by looking at all three together. E.G. War Horse Trailer, War Horse Film Poster and Empire Magazine featuring War Horse on the cover. The Trailer and Poster are part of the advertising for a film and are above the line costs. The Magazine cover is publicity and free (below the line). Your research should make reference to your wider research on the film industry (particularly the area of distribution)

Contemporary Media Issues

Candidates are free to study any media texts, theories, case studies, debates and issues, providing they relate to the four prompts for the topic area selected. The exam question will relate to one or more of the prompts.

Contemporary Media Regulation

               

What is the nature of contemporary media regulation compared with previous practices?

What are the arguments for and against specific forms of contemporary media regulation?

How effective are regulatory practices?

What are the wider social issues relating to media regulation?

Candidates might explore combinations of:

Film censorship, the regulation of advertising, the Press and regulation / control, computer / video game classification, contemporary broadcasting and political control, the effects debate and alternative theories of audience, children and television, violence and the media or a range of other study contexts relating to the regulation of contemporary media.

Global Media

               

What kinds of media are increasingly global in terms of production and distribution?

How have global media developed, in historical terms, and how inclusive is this trend in reality?

What kinds of audience behaviour and consumption are increasingly global?

What are the arguments for and against global media, in relation to content, access, representation and identity?

Candidates might explore combinations of any two media in relation to the above prompts. Examples are film and debates around cultural imperialism, television and national versus imported broadcasting, national press in relation to global news provision, media marketing aimed at cross-national territories, examples of media that contradict theories of globalisation or a range of other examples of global media practices.

Media and Collective Identity

               

How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic / social / collective groups of people in different ways?

How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?

What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?

To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’?

Candidates might explore combinations of any media representation across two media, or two different representations across two media. Some examples are:

National cinema, television representations, magazines and gender, representations of youth and youth culture, post-9/11 representations of Islam, absence / presence of people with disability in two media.

Media in the Online Age

               

How have online media developed?

What has been the impact of the internet on media production?

How is consumer behaviour and audience response transformed by online media, in relation to the past?

To what extent has convergence transformed the media?

Candidates might explore combinations of any two media, considering how each (or the two in converged forms) can be analysed from the above prompts. Examples might be music downloading and distribution, the film industry and the internet, online television, online gaming, online news provision, various forms of online media production by the public or a range of other online media forms.

Post-modern Media

               

What are the different versions of post-modernism (historical period, style, theoretical approach)?

What are the arguments for and against understanding some forms of media as post-modern?

How do post-modern media texts challenge traditional text-reader relations and the concept of representation?

In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a post-modern world?

Candidates might explore combinations of:

How post-modern media relate to genre and narrative across two media, computer / video games and new forms of representation, post-modern cinema, interactive media, reality TV, music video, advertising, post-modern audience theories, aspects of globalisation, parody and pastiche in media texts or a range of other applications of post-modern media theory.

‘We Media’ and Democracy

               

What are ‘We Media’?

Where / how has ‘We Media’ emerged?

In what way are the contemporary media more democratic than before?

In what ways are the contemporary media less democratic than before?

Candidates might explore combinations of any two media in relation to the above prompts. Starting from Gillmoor’s definition, all media that are ‘homegrown’, local, organic and potentially counter-cultural can be studied for this topic, as long