Convergence Culture 

Convergence culture is the theory that we learn from one another and also that we are more than an audience, we have the power to create, produce and analyse the media our selves. Convergence culture which is also known as fan fiction. The idea of fan fiction is that fans adapt their favourite films to their own ideas and stories. Events are made such as conventions for a certain group or type of fan or even types of languages such as Ewok language from Starwars.  An example of fan fiction is the author of 50 Shades Of Grey was inspired by Twilight and adapted her opinion of Twilight into her own world.

 

Here is a link to learn Ewokese for all serious fans  http://www.completewermosguide.com/ewokese.html

Uses and Gratification Theory 

This theory focuses on the audience other than the message that the media is giving out.  They ask "what people do with the media", their own person reactions rather than "what the media does to people". This theory was established by Blumer and Katz in 1959. Blumer and Katz also said that media consumers have the will power to decide how they use the media and how it will effect them.

Everyone watches films for different reasons, these reasons may be to connect and identify with the character so they can share the same feelings as them or even to use them as a role model and aspiration. Another reason maybe to educate and absorb information from the news or a documentary.  Other purposes include entertainment such as the Kardashians and social interaction, chatting to friends or on social media arguing for and against some issues within a program.

A example of identifying, educating and also entertainment and interaction is the MTV show Catfish. Catfish started off as a film about a guy who has an online relationship and how he perused it. Once the film was made and the initial verdict was discovered they continued this into a series. The series goes into other peoples online relationships all over America. You can easily identify with these characters as everyone has been mislead or let down before, it educates to the dangers on line, entertains by following others stories and then you can also interact with Catfish through online mediums. 

On twitter I looked into what people were tweeting about on of MTV's biggest shows Catfish to see if it does create awareness and educate others about dating online. There is many many tweets about how everyone loves the show and how they should spread out globally as this is such a world wide issue and one of the most common ways to start a relationship now days. Going through twitter i cam to the conclusion that all the tweets are about either how they find the show or MTV promoting it. There doesn't see to be anyone online who feels educated or realises this it's very dangerous talking online. 

Hypodermic needle theory

In our second lesson of critical approaches we studied the theory of The Hypodermic needle all so known as The Syringe Theory.

The hypodermic theory is the idea that a the media has a huge amount of power over their audience, they could inject the characters feelings into you through films or games and make you feel the same as them or do the same actions which they do. This theory is very much alive still today, a classic example would be the media saying how video games influence violence.

My opinion of this is that yes the media do have a huge influence over people however we know whats right and wrong. The people who are involved with crimes normally have a mental illness that drives them to the state of committing something. No one really plays Grand Theft Auto and then does what they played in the game in real life?

I watched a couple of interviews with Quentin Tarantino on his film Django Unchained and what he thinks about this whole theory. In his interview he mentions many things on how he "PJ'ed" the violence of slavery and then went on to say that in Django Unchained there are two types of violence; true brutality and a toned down version. His ultimate goal for this film was to take the 21st century audience and take them back to old time Mississippi. However even though most of the violence was toned down Tarantino admits watching the audiences reaction and realising that they still though it was horrific even though he thought the original cuts were a lot worse. In many ways the cruelty left in was in the original motive for the audience to really to within the atmosphere of the film and feel the pain with the characters.

One of the questions that really stood out to me was "What gave you the courage to do this?" Tarantino answer that the passion he has to tell the truth and nothing but the truth of these characters drove him. He says that he "doesn't clean up" films, he tries to keep everything as true as possible.

Another important question was what he thought of the film criticism that he had received, all he said was that it was his job to ignore it and get on with making his film. I thought that this really gave a backbone to why the hypodermic needle is still around, people wouldn't be so concerned on the violence otherwise.

I'm still to decide wether it is so prominent in society or not. I read on Wikipedia that  "The most famous incident often cited as an example for the hypodermic needle model was the 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds and the subsequent reaction of widespread panic among its American mass audience. However, this incident actually sparked the research movement, led by Paul Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog, that would disprove the magic bullet or hypodermic needle theory, as Hadley Cantril managed to show that reactions to the broadcast were, in fact, diverse, and were largely determined by situational and attitudinal attributes of the listeners."  This is an older version of the hypodermic needle theory however it still suggests that the media can have a massive effect on certain targeted audiences.  

 A few really good videos on YouTube swung me towards the idea that it is more than it is not

- The Media's manipulative influence on your morals-  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZkC_fNxmQk

- America's Obsession: A Documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Do8S0lSqg 

Hello, I'm Zoe and I am a student at the Brit School studying BDC Media and English Literature A level. This blog is for my critical approaches class, i'll be blogging about what i have learnt and what i felt about certain film pieces. 

Today we looked at a clip of Up when the husband and life have that short memory of their lives and saving up for an adventure, with many things going wrong along the way. I felt a lot of sympathy towards the elderly man. 

We then started to discuss how everyone felt about this other film about a horse made in the 70's. We shared our opinions and gave reasons for why we thought the film was made.