Hegemony & Pluralism

Hegemony is a concept by Gramsci, he show’s that everyday things that we do to create a complex system in society, can be feed to use through by a dominate group or class. It shows how we are feed by the media to believe what they tell us to do is correct. For example as Althusse explains in the “ideological state apparatus” that, religion, media, and family can feed us views that we believe in and these 3 things help us structure how we live. Another example is where school students are feed by teachers what they have to do in school, like coming to lessons and school in time. All these example I have given of how many things can brainwash peoples is given the term “indoctrinate and manipulate” by the theorist Marcuse. The hegemonic concept is for a passive audience.

The Pluralistic concept has an active audience, where they interpret media texts for themselves and creates more than one meaning for that text. This creates a negotiated and optional reading for its audience which also link to the reception theory, the media in these texts have to be pluralistic and reflect society. The pluralistic way of looking at the media gives the audience a sense of freedom to view society as how they want.

I feel there is no convening concept as if there was no hegemony in this world then society may not be structure properly, but if there was no pluralism people would have any freedom of speech in how they think the media can manipulate people. There is no concept that is convincing for me, as I think that we need both hegemony and pluralism as with hegemony society is structured and with pluralism it let people speak out.

- "Titles such as Loaded, FHM and Maim distinguish themselves from pornographic publications today"

- "Full of women posing naked... similar to those in Playboy, a top shelf publication"

- "Modern magazine follow the conventions of Playboy, in which women are depicted as objects for men's contemplation and enjoyment"

- "hold an overriding emphasis on penetrative sex and repeatedly represent women as the weaker gender who were made only to make men's life more enjoyable and entertaining"

- "The scantily dressed females represent women as sex objects and exhibit an overpowering masculinity to the audience and therefore re-enforce negative stereotypes in the media"

- "Cynically, the lifestyle "labelled" magazines for men are simply a way for the publishing institutions to make a lot of money"

Close Textual Analysis

I choose this scene to look at in detail for my textual analysis as it shows’ a lot of different representation of characters.

MEDIA LANGUAGE: The opening shot of this scene begins as the camera captures a few of the housemate’s interaction in the “party games”. Their clothes vary from fake wigs, angel like costume to casual clothing of some housemates. It’s hard to say if there is a protagonist or a leader in this scene as there are a lot of housemates gathered. Editing includes zoom outs to see the entire atmosphere and zoom in on individual faces to see the impact of questions asked. The first question that is asked it “what is your bank balance before you came in” after this question is asked the camera is zoomed out, to show the different facial expressions on different housemates. Brain seemed to be in shock after the question was answered and the camera was instantly zoomed into his face, this shows the fascination that people have of money, or the fact that they may feel is a person has this much money why are they on Big Brother to win the cash prize? The costume’s used such as angel like costumes may show what kind of an image that contestant is trying to portray of themselves. Some costumes are also 70’s like as they are wearing brightly coloured jumpers and wigs, the use of these costumes is to again create a atmosphere almost like primary school children playing a game of truth and dare, as the different costumes that some housemates choose to wear, shows there each individual character. For example Channele is wearing an angel like costume so therefore she might presume herself as an angel.

INSTITUTION: Big Brother is shown as powerful. They are the ones who control the shots and scene’s to be shown. But it may portray them in a negative way as they may show certain issues that are happening in the house, just to gain viewers.

GENRE: This scene has two genres. It has an overall genre of a reality TV show, as it follows the conventions of reality TV shows, as the camera pans to the highlights that happen, and the second genre being a party, as they also have the typical conventions of a party, like costumes hats, and “party games”.

REPRESENTION: The older people in the scene are represented as laid back and are observing what is happening in the game around them, Ziggy observes to see the response to the questions of “who do you like in the house”. Where as the younger contestants play a more interactive role and are represented as lively and maybe socially interactive. The scene also represents woman in a maybe “ladish” way from the way in which Charley is screaming in a violent way, or is may be seen as a way to get attention. Also there is a slight representation of women, there are two types of women being shown one of which are the “good girls” and the other being the “bad girls” this can be seen as, the “good girls” are wearing casual sports clothes and are showing little interaction in the game. The “bad girls” that are shown may be characters such as Charley as she is wearing provocative clothing for the male audience, by her wearing these type of clothes, may create fans for her and but also may show her in need of attention.

AUDIENCE: This scene indicates that the audience for this particular scene is for a young audience, of about 14-17 in age as they would better understand the game - “Truth and dare”.

VALUES & IDEOLOGY: In this scene the audience sees a tame version of expectations of the game “truth and dare”. In the relationship between the two male contestants first kissing deeply and then peeking. However this suggests that the media is now more open to show male relationship on TV and are more comfortable in showing it in an edited episode as the issue is becoming more acceptable in society and also in the media. Channelle is embarrassed by Ziggy kissing an older contestants bottom, which suggests that Chanelle is less unadventurous than the other younger contestants. Nikki comes across as typically feminine, as she is “properly” dressed and also talks and shouts to a minimum and does not let attention draw to her.
Other Values and Ideologies that are shown may be

NARRATIVE: Party games that are being played, - “truth and dare” there is also a narrative of Ziggy and the person next to him (forgot her name! opps), as they are waiting to see whether or not Billy gives the impression that he like Channelle, which in the end there conclusion was wrong.

del.ici.ous Links x10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_television - History of reality TV and diffrent reality TV shows



http://technorati.com/tag/reality-tv?language=en&authority=a4 - latest gossip on reality TV shows

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-reality-television-programs - other reality TV shows

http://www.realitytvworld.com/ - headlines

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/realitytv - headlines for reality TV shoe Xfactor

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1459878.stm - how much more further will Big Brother go

10 key words

Active audience theory: any of various theories of audience behaviour that see the audience as active participants in the process of decoding and making sense of media texts.

- I can show how the audience relates to different reality programmes

Althusser, Louis: French Marxist sociologist with a particular interest in the role of the media in supporting dominant ideology and the symbolic order separating us from reality.

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Attitudes, beliefs and values: terms commonly used when discussing the audience for media products and the factors influencing the reception of media messages.

- How the media can be influential towards its audience.

Audience: the groups or individuals targeted by producers as the intended consumers of media texts. Owing to the wide availability of media texts, the actual viewers, readers or listeners may not be those originally targeted.

- How programmes aim to target for a particular audience.

Audience flow: in television scheduling, the extension of an audience by, for example, placing a new comedy after an established one, or by clustering similar programmes together.

- To gain ore viewing shows are shown at certain times.

Audience participation: the practice of involving the audience in television and radio productions by inviting their votes or opinions or their direct participation in the activities that form the basis of the programme.

- How programmes engage its audience – maybe for more audience viewings?

Audience theory: any various theories about the behaviour of audiences with regard to media texts.

- Use this theory in my question

Realism: a film and television style that attempts to represent the real world.
- I can argue how real is reality TV

Reality television: a style of television which claims to represent real-life situations rather than scripted pre-recorded constructs, and which places members of the public in everyday or contrived situations and then films their behaviour for “live” transmission.

Reception theory “audience studies”: an active audience theory, associated with the work of John Fiske, Michel de Certeau and researcher David Morley, which sees the audience as being actively engaged in the interpretation of media texts rather than as passive consumer.

- Use this theory and relate it to my question.

Who watches it?

Big Brother is not the highest rated programme. If I was to compare Big Brother with a soap it would be misleading, as soaps are aired in the evening where as Big Brother is aired much later giving it a smaller audience.















The audience builds thorough around eviction time.
Jade Goody eviction - 19th January had high levels of views.

The hardest audience type to get watching television is younger people. They have other things to do in life. BUT Big Brother is good at attracting a young audience.

Audience group	% of total
8-16	11.5
16-34	49.3
35-54	29.2
55+	10.0
Male	42.4
Female	57.7

The people who watch reality TV shows, when asked to comment on reality TV assume that it should have "non actors and no script". BUT they don't know there watching something that has een made by producers to make television entertaining.

Is it really REAL?

These shows claim “realism”. It’s the way the programmes are shot and should be in a genre of observational documentaries. Ordinary contestants seem to be treated as celebrities even before they appear on the show as they get their expenses covered for them, so this is an even bigger desire for them to be on television.
Jade Goody has seen her life transform and “Nasty” Nick Bateman had a sucuessful career in the media.

Psychotherapist for the 1st ever series said it would be wrong to “throw in people who would disagree” – like putting a racist black guy together, we know opposites like that would have a big fight and stop communicating and in the house they had to keep communicating for a long time.
To achieve dramatic narrative producers would heartlessly edit footage.

FOR EXAMPLE – in an Australian series 82,750 hours of material was edited to 70hours. Live shows where broadcasted.
Also the audience is being misled as what they are being shown in ten minutes delayed to make sure of unsuitable material. BUT recently police are investigating charges of racism.

Big Brother is constructed to attract and hold a audience. It uses “real” people in “real” situations, BUT chooses to manipulate them to produce narrative/dram and conflict.

Why is there so much Reality TV around?

The popularity of Reality TV is due to the broadcasting increasing in its competition and to move from a niche audience to a mass audience. It tries to attract the largest possible number of people a channel or programmes.

ITV dropped from 44% audience share in 1981 to 20% in 2006, but this is still more successful than some niche channels. But the decrease in viewers meant mainstream broadcasters needed to make programmes that attract a mass audience and find a way to hold onto this audience.

COST

Reality shows were cheap, there was no need to pay writers/actors/no rehearsals etc. they used ordinary people, it was a cheap way to make television.

Hour long drama - £875,000 per hour

Reality TV - £114, 00 per hour!

Shilpa Shetty was paid between £200,000 and £300,000 for appearing in the show

Big Brother gave channel 4 its most popular rating – 10 million viewers.

2^nd series of Big Brother had 4.5 million viewers – 70 % increase.

3^rd Big Brother – 10 million text messages 10 million viewers for its finale

Advert slot during Big Brother costs - £40,000

Bibliography

http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=314&issue=114

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0008/23/cf.00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_television

MORE WILL BE ADDED AS I GO ALONG..

Reality TV & Some Notes

Reality television is a genre of television programming which presents unscripted dramatic/humorous situations it features ordinary people instead of professional actors. In many reality television shows, the viewer and the camera are passive observers that follow people going about their daily personal and professional activities; this style of filming is often referred to as fly on the wall or factual television. Often plots are constructed on reality TV shows through editing or planning situations.

Below some notes on Big Brother and other shows and a bit of history on them.

Some documentary-style programs place cast members, who may previously did not know each other, in artificial living environments; The Real World.

In almost every other such show, cast members are given a specific challenge or obstacle to overcome. Road Rules, this show started in 1995 as a spinoff of The Real World.

Big Brother is the best known program of this type in the world with different versions produced in many countries around the globe.

Another example of a show in this category is The 1990 house where cast members are forced to live and work as people of a specific time and place.

A show in 2001's Tempation Island has achieved a bad name by placing several couples on an island surrounded by single people in order to test the couples' commitment to each other.

Self Assesment on Presentation

WWW
I think I had a good understanding of how reality TV began. Also I knoew a lot in Big brother as a whole, and related it to other texts. Also me asking my audience a lot of different questions made them interact and stay focused.

EBI
I didn’t have the right body language for my presentation which made my audience lose interest. I could have also included more SHEP. Also I should have gone over my presentation to make sure I understood it as I faced problems with my question and also my theorist.