Week 12 Lectorial Reflection

The following sentence is not against Dan’s lecture as he always presents a very engaging and informative presentation but, I have to admit to getting a bit lost throughout this week’s lectorial. The conceptual ideas that were being discussed are inherently interesting and provoked a dense and keen minded reflection. This all could be on the fact that I am running on very little sleep at the moment but the idea of media materialism will take a while to fully sink into my brain. Dan highlighted the three main areas of the concept: Technology, culture and technique. Technology is said to be the constellation of knowledge and products, not just a tool for human use but an all encompassing ideology coupled with cultural values.  Culture is centred around identifying sub groups within a population and the creative expressionism that stems from each group such as art, theatre and cinema. Technique are the traits and skills that are uniquely human such as using our brains to understand the written word, languages and how to use tools.

Another interesting concept Dan introduced was that of technology determinism, that technology as a concept is almost sentient, that it can determine its own path. Murphie & Potts state that it “refers to the belief that technology is the agent of social change” and in the era of Web 2.0 and society’s dependance on social media, technology can certainly be seen as driving social changes. Social media has become ingrained in the lives of a large majority of the millennial generation, the ease at which individuals can achieve a global connectedness in a matter of seconds ensures that the evolution of technology will dictate how society evolves as the further embrace and rely upon the machines.

Week 11 Lectorial Reflection

Dan’s lecture on remixes was extremely engaging as it showed how media can evolve into different forms of art.  His question on how reproducing something changes it and whether it is seen as legitimate is core at most debates over remixing as copyright laws and ownership of art makes many remixes are not seen as legitimate by the original artist. Yet I feel that people who make remixes of content does so to honour the original work, especially fans of some televisions, movies, and music.

The Girl Talk remix “This is the Remix” is a fantastic example of how a combination between many different songs creates something new while showing how diverse and great the music landscape is. Dan asked us to listen to it a pick out the songs we could hear and I walked away with a total of… two, The Jackson Five and the Beastie Boys. The rest of the class fared better, a cumulative effort revealing these other bands.

  • DMX
  • Cecilia
  • INXS
  • Lil’ Jon
  • Salt n Pepa
  • Lady Gaga
  • Ace of Base
  • Busta Rhymes
  • The Clash
  • Rick Ross
  • B.O.B.
  • U2

It was said in the lecture that remixes rely on the audiences knowledge of pop culture to understand a specific mash up and that is what I think is so great about remixes. Appreciators of a certain remix can come together as fans an understand what makes the mash up great, allowing each individual part of the new whole to be reflected on and honoured.

 

Week 10 Lectorial Reflection

I have never really reflected on media institutions as a concept before this lectorial, my love of the content trumping how it was made from a studio side of things. Yet having Brian use marriage, a social institution to provide context for how media institutions are seen gave a clear and concise entry point for me into this topic. A group brainstorming session on how marriage is an institution yielded responses such as

    • Governed by expectations
    • Values/monogamy
    • Legal framework/ regulatory
    • Meta-institutional frame
    • Widely accepted/practice
    • Cultural ‘rules’
    • Rituals, symbolic
    • Community recognition
    • Social
    • Reproduce social relations, expectations
    • Historical continuities
    • Superstitions
    • Romantic love – cultural narratives
    • Economic cultural

Having associated the term institutions with companies such as the BBC and Facebook, I never realised that the news and journalism could be considered institutions. This opened my eyes to the collaboration between institutions that have become more prevalent in today’s society. On page 152 of the Dijck & Poell reading, the mention the BBC issuing a policy report embracing digitisation, and this a prime example of how ingrained social media has become in other institutions. Television shows more often than not, nowadays, have hashtags at the bottom of the screen to invite the audience to start a conversation on a global scale, thus keeping the content in the zeitgeist for longer than its airtime. Events from natural disasters to movies are made popular by the global conversations on Twitter, ensuring social media is an institution that as become a necessity in the media landscape.

 

Week 9 Lectorial Reflection

The difference between audiences in the broadcast era and the post-broadcasts era is the ease in which audiences can communicate with each other.  Social media especially plays a central role in this communication, as it allows for an immediate global reaction to a media. Audiences also have a large ability to effect media and its creation, from reality television to Kickstarter, they can play an important role in some aspects of certain media. With a media landscape brimming with countless content, creators are looking to make texts that are more personal to their target audiences. In Rethinking ‘Rethinking Convergence/ Culture’, Henry Jenkins states that their are “significant shifts are occurring which are providing the people greater voice and influence in the decisions that impact their everyday lives” and this helps to show the change broadcasters have had when approaching audiences. The term mass public is longer seen as depicting a media audiences because they have many ways in which to showcase their individuality and opinions.

Another aspect of the lectorial I found interesting was the fact in which audiences were not considered as made up of individual people as much as during the post-broadcast era. Now it is clear that personal biases/experiences/life views shape how people respond to texts and with the introduction of social media into the media landscape it made it impossible to ignore this fact any longer.

Week 8 Lectorial Reflection

Whenever I approach creating something my first thought is “Where is the story?”. I like creating a narrative because our existence is based on story, our everyday life is ruled by people searching for their part in a larger story. For Project Brief 3 I book-ended the portrait with Keegan fixing his hair, creating a narrative framing device to explore his personality, from him sitting on the stool to getting off it, having gone through a change. The audience view him as most people usually don’t, without his hair straightened. They also get to know him through other people’s point of view, as well as seeing him with his hair done up. When they see him get off the stool, they realise they have seen a private part of his life as well has having pieced together his personality as he created his preferred facade.

Whenever I watch a film and I find a plot hole, I like to create a reasonable excuse for why that exists. Even creating a narrative between two seemingly unconnected events or people/characters is something fun I do when I am bored. So approaching Daniel Askill’s film We Have Decided Not To Die and trying to see if there was a narrative aspects to it was an engaging exercise for me.

Some narrative aspects that may exists are

  • Title cards create a linear story
  • Conclusion cross-cutting between the three characters connects their stories
  • People as central figures helps audience connect to them
  • How they arrived at the situations/backstory
  • Movement could connotative pain and struggle and narrative can stem from character suffering
  • Thematic connection, patterns of representation
  • Different places create a journey
  • Parallel events
  • Title gives film causality and character motivation

Jenny had the task of finding non-narrative aspects of the film and she found

  • No obvious causality
  • No character development
  • No clear diegetic plotline
  • No clear linear events tying scenes together
  • Graphic matches to make art, not story
  • Lack of cohesion
  • Non representation (something not explicitly said can mean it is not a narrative element)
  • Lack of conclusion/sense of closure
  • No character motivation
  • People as props not characters

This exercise highlights how each piece of cinema, and even art in general, is subjective to an individual and approaching a film from a different point of view than your usual one can open your eyes to a whole new interpretation.

Week 7 Lectorial Reflection

Every individual watches, interprets and responds to every text in an unique way and in creating these texts you must keep that in mind. The question of ‘what is a text?’ is an intriguing question for me as I have always assumed I knew but never paused to deeply understand what I thought the meaning was. Presented with the idea that texts are vehicles for the production of social meanings of the time they were made invites the thought that whenever I am deconstructing a text, that is the first thought I should consider. Texts provide a history of prominent social values and interpreting them in the context of the time it was made and contrasting it with its place in today’s society shows how certain values have evolved and changed over time.

In these texts are signs, which are made up to two parts. The signifier, which is the label or artefact such and the signified, which is all the thoughts, ideas that spring to mind due to the presentation of the signifier. An example of this relationship could be a dog (signifier) and the thoughts of puppies, family, barking and playing (signified). This can also highlight how individuals respond to a text differently as someone who was attacked by a dog during their childhood may bee presented with the signifier of a dog and have images of fangs, growling and bites be the signified, thus having a direct contrast to someone who loves dogs.

Sound as a medium in and of itself has never been as interesting to me as films and television. I like listening to music and podcasts to fill the silence or monotony of a train or car ride yet having it described as pervasive and omnipresent opens my eyes (and ears) to the reality that sound is inescapable. This makes its role in other texts very important as it provides a certain reality and understanding that would be missing with utter complete, disconcerting silence.

Week 6 Lectorial Reflection

This weeks lectorial centred on media as a form of research and collaboration. My past experiences with group projects in high school is mixed, if I was a part of a motivated and organised group it was a great way to approach a larger project. Yet if the group was less than stellar, the workload would fall to me or I would lose interest as I would feel I was working towards an unachievable goal. As we are about to begin Project Brief 4 which I believe involves working in a group, this lectorial was a good introduction into why learning to collaborate is very beneficial for a person attempting to be a part of the media industry. The pros and cons of collaboration were laid out before us

Strengths

  • Share ideas/solve problems
  • Inspiration
  • Rigour – having stronger vetting process to evaluate ideas and approaches
  • Support
  • Maintain focus/drive – makes you more responsible
  • Speed
  • Share workload
  • Tackle bigger projects

Weaknesses

  • You end up doing all the work and others get credit for it
  • Project ‘dies’ because no one ‘owns’ it
  • You rely on other people and they let you down
  • You don’t feel comfortable in expressing your opinion
  • Cannot reach compromise
  • Project lacks unity

These are all common circumstances I have experienced throughout my schooling but having the seven characteristics of a positive collaboration allowed me to see where I went wrong and how to improve on any group projects in the future. One of these characteristics that I see as the most difficult to achieve would be being equitable, sharing the workload equally. Something I hope to experience in my future collaborations is what Keith Sawyer describes as perfect group flow. One particular aspect of this concept I believe to be the most difficult in terms of work delegation is ‘Blending Egos.’ While group work provides a fantastic environment for ideas to flourish as members can bounce them off each other and build towards evolving that idea, ego can be a difficult thing to control in a group situation. Some people who like being in control may overlook other members ideas and there will be less opportunity for contribution. Balancing egos may be difficult but the concept of dispute resolution methods may be a good way for every voice to be heard. In addition, with my past experiences informing this view, the most important part of collaboration is organisation and time management. A rigid timeline ensures people meet certain goals when they need to be completed which stops infighting and attempt to place blame on other members of the group.

While my past experiences with collaboration may be mostly negative, I am looking forward to working with people whom I share a common interest with and see how we can evolve as a team working to produce a media artefact.

 

Week 4 Lectorial Reflection

The concept of media can be seen from many different perspectives and Adrian Miles’ presentation that media is a thing, not a meaning is based on an individual’s life experience shaping how they view media. The concept of a separation between a mind and body, that thinking is separate form making, and its outdated nature in current society was eye opening for me in terms of study habits and willingness to take the extra step. Adrian’s thoughts on how thinking about something is not beneficial unless you follow up with an action to reinforce those thoughts shows how a good work ethic and a combination of mind and body is imperative in learning.

Liam Ward’s presentation on editing was fascinating for me. His opening piece on how editors view the process as “about fixing problems” reveals how central editing is to a film’s narrative and commercial success. “If you break it, it creates meaning” is a compelling way to approach editing any piece of media as it exposes the fluidity of a text’s meaning as well as the differences of meaning for each individual who consumes it.

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Having to create scenes in which they could all be interchangeable along the narrative’s timeline ensured that all scenarios needed to be broad without any specific mention of time. The initial conclusion for our narrative was waking up in the hospital at 1am and so to ensure that the sequences could fit anywhere in the timeline they all had to relate to a large accident or revelation, resulting in three various forms of turning points to ensure the protagonist ended up at the hospital. This resulted in a fairly dark narrative which in turn morphed the relatively safe and pleasant sequence of buying flowers into a sombre reminder of death, thus revealing how meaning of a scene is heavily dependent on the surrounding context of the entirety of a text.

Week 3 Lectorial Reflection

As a person who has ingrained myself in popular media, I define myself by the television shows and films I watch. Understanding the copyright laws surrounding the media I create gave a clear distinction and guide on how to honour those works while not impeaching on them. For instance, I did not know that a copyright is automatic and their is no registration system or need for the © symbol. The distinction of what is and is not copyrighted was interesting as the idea for a project is not protected by copyright laws as it must have a material form such as a book, film, image, etc, for it to be protected.

Paul’s rues for ‘being cool’ on a production opened my eyes to the levels and size of the productions we as students are able to create, compared to the high school efforts of yesteryear. An important take away for me from his talk is the fact that as  lead on a production I must respect and ensue the cast and crew are happy. The organisational skills required is daunting to me but Paul showed me that the first step to a happy crew is to accommodate them for without them there is no production. Some key ones he mentioned were

  • Communication with all participants to ensure everyone is on the same page and understands their role in the production.
  • When location shooting, arrive two hours before the cast and ensure the crew has enough time to set up the shoot before the participants arrive.
  • Ensure you fill out and document the proper location and personal release forms

This last point correlates with the Donovan reading as on page 347 discusses the nature of consent in documentaries. Not ”whether it is right or wrong to gain consent” but ”what we may know and understand what constitutes ‘consent.”’ Having briefly discussed Project Brief 3, where we will have to make a portrait of someone in our lives, this debate on what constitutes consent is interesting. It makes me think outside of the mindset of a filmmaker and into the mind of the subject and they way they may want to be portrayed after giving consent to have their personality displayed to an audience.

 

 

Noticing Media in the City (Wk 2)

While I, like most of society, am aware of the constant nature of media in this era it is still very overwhelming and surprising when I am asked to confront what that actually means. The task assigned to us was to go into Melbourne, my group specifically outside of the state library, and note down ALL mediated interactions/communications we encountered for 45 minutes to an hour, . Here is a list of what we managed to notice.

-Ad for the movie ‘Focus’ -‘Appliances Online’ blimp -State library signs -Protest for Tibet banners -Chanting in protest for the unrest in Tibet -Free tram zone sign -ING direct ad -Yarra trams -Tibetan flag -Canon camera -’24/7′ biscuits -Superman -Telstra free WiFi booth -Myki -Commonwealth Bank -Cirque de Soleil -Construction signs -Traffic lights -Kiis 101.1 -AC/DC -Twitter -Coffee -Discussion on the protesting -Tibet national anthem -Discussion on cupcakes -RMIT -Dalai Lama -‘California Republic’ clothing -Children’s book festival -Apple iPhone -Samsung Galaxy -Vans -‘Lottas’ shoes -‘Dotti’ clothing -Community Season 6 -Pandora -Spotify -Google -Instagram -Facebook -Weather -Time -‘Harmontown’ Podcast

A game of chess between a group men for all to see
A game of chess between a group men for all to see
Tibetan protest outside of the State Library
Tibetan protest outside of the State Library

Even with the never ending stream of ads, conversations and chanting all around me what really surprised me was how much of my interaction with media was contained on my phone. Delving into the process of noticing allowed me to fully realise how a modern society filters media communications. There is a constant intake of media in our everyday lives but by choosing to focus in on a specific section of this intake, the rest becomes a part of the background, white noise in a world trying to make you notice.