Summer PPE: Learner's Response

Type up your feedback in full

• WWW:Some excellent answers; Great interpretation of theory 
• EBI: More focus on industries, especially Q8

Identify ONE point you could have added for the first three questions in Section A

• Q1: Levi Strauss' Binary Opposition of the hero/villain
• Q2: Bell Boy character seemingly conforming to traditional masculine attributes but ending the advert subverting these expectations.
• Q3: bell hooks 'normalised traumatisation' and how the score hair cream advert worked to create the hypermasculine and corrosive depiction of men we see in today's media

Using the suggested content in the mark scheme, write an essay plan containing five paragraphs/points that answer the music video and postmodernism question.

• Intro: Intertextual references in Billie Jean, Pastiche from different genres within Letter to the Free and the impact of both of them 'blurring' the reality between the 'truth' and the media orchestrated reality in order to comment on the social climates of the time.  
• Letter to the free; intertextual references to politics ["Shot me with your ray-gun/Now you want to trump me], Historical Deafness [Amendment 13/Cultural contexts] we hear about racial injustice through a song rather than first hand, Pastiche of 90s Hip Hop, Tricia Rose [Black Voices articulating their experiences and challenging the hegemonic white capitalist ideologies], Soundtrack - Fictitious recount of true events.
• Billie Jean; Intertextual references to new technology [Polaroids], and pop culture at the time as well as the noir genre, intertextual references to another music genre [Musicals; Singin' in the rain, Wizard of Oz], social commentary on the media at the time - pastiche to the film noir genre to depict this, the media orchestrated identity of 'MJ' and the idea of hyperreality- the audience doesn't know where 'MJ' ends and Michael Jackson begins. 
• Billie Jean; Freeze frames make the audience conscious of the fact they're watching a music video- subverts the hyperrealism theory, cemented Goodwin's music video conventions, however blurs these 'truths' and conventions by using freeze frames, intertextual references and a narrative of the media within a media text.
•  Conclusion: Both texts could be argued as post-modern, Gilroy's diaspora and how this links with the representations, reference MTV and new technology, as well as the importance of social context, come to the conclusion that they both can be interpreted as postmodern although Billie Jean is more explicit. 

Two benefits of vertical integration:

•  Greater control of the production process
•  Lower costs and higher profits

Definition of diversification:

• Diversification is when media conglomerates, or industries 'branch out' into newer markets or platforms; such as BBC and BBC IPlayer.

Write a new paragraph that answers the question referring to either Capital or Deutschland 83 and the global TV industry.

• Deutschland 83 reflects the global nature of the television industry through it's production. It was funded by both German and American money and written by a German-American couple, this highlights how the production of television programmes is far more globalised than it was before, however this did cause some representations within the show to fail to hit the mark in a cultural context. Although, it did offer different representations many German viewers failed to personally connect or see their own identities within the show [Blumler and Katz] since the content was fairly westernised, perhaps for commercial purposes. The Supermarket scene in particular, is extremely western, with a pastiche of the pop art era as well as the British 80s hit song 'Sweet Dreams' playing in the background, it felt like something straight out of an American coming of age tv show, this could prove detrimental and subvert the actual global nature of television. On the other hand, Deutschland 83, was features on Channel 4's on demand box set 'Walter Presents' which was an amalgamation of foreign tv shows, and arthouse series' recommended to a largely western audience, this reiterates the idea that the television industry is less focused on regional or national successes and recognise that targeting shows to a wider range of audiences globally has a more sustainable and profitable outcome.