A2 Media : Shameless

An interesting article published in Housing Today in which the issue of social stereotyping is explored in some detail. Read it at :

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/journals/insidehousing/legacydata/uploads/pdfs/IH.061027.018-020.pdf

A2 Media : Ownership & Cross Media Promotion

Watch the film presentation at :
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/8250829/media-ownership-and-cross-media-promotion

AS Media : Tools Of Analysis

Camera

CAMERA SHOTS
Aerial Shot – A camera shot taken from an overhead position. Often used as an establishing shot.
Close Up – A head and shoulders shot often used to show expressions/emotions of a character. Also can be a shot of an object, filmed from close to the object or zoomed in to it, that reveals detail.
Extreme Close Up – A shot where a part of a face or body of a character fills the whole frame/dominates the frame. Also can be a shot of an object where only a small part of it dominates the frame.
Establishing Shot – A shot that establishes a scene, often giving ther viewer information about where the scene is set. Can be a close up shot (of a sign etc) but is often a wide/long shot and usually appears at the beginning of a scene.
Medium Shot – the framing of a subject from waist up.
Two Shot – A shot of two characters, possible engaging in conversation. Usually to signify/establish some sort of relationship
Point-Of-View Shot (POV) – Shows a view from the subject’s perspective. This shot is usually edited so that the viewer is aware who’s point of view it is.
Over the Shoulder Shot – looking from behind a character’s shoulder, at a subject. The character facing the subject usually occupies 1/3 of the frame but it depends on what meaning the director wants to create (for example, if the subject is an inferior character, the character facing them may take up more of the frame to emphaise this)
Overhead Shot – a type of camera shot in which the camera is positioned above the character, action or object being filmed.
Reaction Shot – a shot that shows the reaction of a character either to another character or an event within the sequence.

CAMERA ANGLES
Camera Angle – the position of the camera in relation to the subject of a shot. The camera might be at a high angle, a low angle or at eye level with what is being filmed.
High Angle – A camera angle that looks down upon a subject or object. Often used to make the subject or object appear small or vulnerable.
Low Angle – A camera angle that looks up at a subject or object. Often used to make the subject/object appear powerful/dominant.
Canted framing (or oblique) – camera angle that makes what is shot appear to be skewed or tilted.

CAMERA MOVEMENT
Pan – Where the camera pivots horizontally, either from right to left or left to right to reveal a set or setting. This can be used to give the viewer a panoramic view. Sometimes used to establish a scene.
Track - a shot whjere the camera follows a subject/object. The tracking shot can include smooth movements forward, backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve but cannot include complex movement around a subject. ‘Track’ refers to rails in which a wheeled platform (which has the camera on it) sits on in order to carry out smooth movement.
Crane – A crane shot is sometimes used to signify the end of a scene/ programme /film. The effect is achieved by the camera being put onto a crane that can move upward.
Steadicam - A steadicam is a stabilising mount for a camera which mechanically isolates the operator's movement from the camera, allowing a very smooth shot even when the operator is moving quickly over an uneven surface. Informally, the word may also be used to refer to the combination of the mount and camera.
Tilt - where a camera scans a set or setting vertically (otherwise similar to a pan).
Zoom – Using a zoom lens to appear to be moving closer to (zoom in) or further away from (zoom out) a subject/object when in fact the camera may not move (so, strictly not camera movement). Can be used for dramatic effect.

Sound

Diegetic Sound – sound that can be heard by the characters within a scene/ sound part of the imaginary world.
Non-diegetic Sound – sound that the characters cannot hear and is not part of the imaginary world of the story. This includes a musical soundtrack or a voiceover (however this excludes a narration by a character within the story – referred to as an internal monologue and is diegetic).
Score – The musical component of a programme’s soundtrack, usually composed specifically for the scene.
Sound Effects – sounds that are added to a film during the post-production stage.

Editing

Editing – the stage in the film-making process in which sound and images are organised into an overall narrative.
Continuity Editing – the most common type of editing, which aims to create a sense of reality and time moving forward. Also nick named invisible editing referring to how the technique does not draw attention to the editing process.
Jump Cut – An abrupt, disorientating transitional device in the middle of a continuos shot in which the action is noticeably advanced in time and/or cut between two similar shots, usually done to create discontinuity for artistic effect.
Credits – the information at the beginning and end of a film, which gives details of cast and crew etc.
Cross Cutting – the editing technique of alternating, interweaving, or interspersing one narrative action (scene, sequence or event) with another – usually in different locations or places, thus combining the two: this editing technique usually suggests Parallel action (that takes place simultaneously). Often used to dramatically build tension and/or suspense in chase scenes or to compare two different scenes. Also known as inter-cutting or parallel editing
Cutaways – A brief shot that momentarily interrupts continuous action by briefly inserting another related action. Object, or person (sometimes not part of the principle scene or main action), followed by a cutback to the original shot.
Freeze Frame – the effect of seemingly stopping a film in order to focus in on one event or element.
Eye-line Match – a type of edit which cuts from one character to what that character has been looking at.
Flashback – a scene or moment in a film in which the audience is shown an event that happened earlier in the film’s narrative.
Graphic Match – an edit effect in which two different objects of the same shape are dissolved from one into the other.
Juxtaposition – the placement of two (often opposed) images on either side of an edit to create an effect.
Linear Narrative – a style of storytelling in which events happen chronologically.
Montage Editing – the juxtaposition of seemingly unconnected images in order to create meaning.
Parallel Editing – a type of editing in which events in two locations are cut together, in order to imply a connection between the two sets of events.
Visual Effects - visual effects are usually used to alter previously-filmed elements by adding, removing or enhancing objects within the scene.
Match on Action - A shot that emphasises continuity of space and time by matching the action of the preceding shot with the continuation of the action. (For example a shot of a door opening after a shot of a close up of a character’s hand turning a door handle)

Mise en Scene

Mise en scene – a French term, which literally means ‘put into the frame’. When analysing a sequence the term refers to everything you see in the frame:

props, eg in a police drama this could mean a gun or a badge, also can mean iconography 

costume, the colour and style of the actor/subject can have important connotations and denotations about their character, role within narrative, etc.

lighting, the harshness or softness of light has differing effects on representing the mood of a scene.

colour, if you've studied psychology then you'll understand what each colour signifies.  The colours used in popular brandings are significant in determing their identifiability, ie 'the golden arches' but also says a lot about a person or company's ideology.

Makeup - we're not just talking about a bit of slap here, this can refer to masks, prosthetics and special effects.

Other important terms used in analysis of TV/Film:

Artificial Light – A source of light created by lighting equipment, rather than from natural sources.
Convention – a frequently used element which becomes standard.
Disequilibrium – the period of instability and insecurity in a film’s narrative.
Enigma – the question or mystery that is posed within a film’s narrative.
Equilibrium – a state of peace and calm, which often exists at the beginning of a film’s narrative.
Framing – the selection of elements such as characters, setting and iconography that appear within a shot.
Genre – a system of film identification, in which films that have the same elements are grouped together.
Iconography – the objects within a film that are used to evoke particular meanings
Intertextuality – reference within a film to another film, media product, work of literature or piece of artwork.
Mise en scene – a French term, which literally means ‘put into the frame’. When analysing a sequence the term refers to everything you see in the frame (props, costume, lighting, colour, makeup etc.)
Narrative – a story that is created in a constructed format (eg. A programme) that describes a series of fictional or non-fictional events.

AS Media : Key Concepts

Any media text is made up of GRANITE.  Confused?

• Okay, Every media text belongs to a Genre or group (a horror film, dance track, teen magazine)
• Within that text, a person, place or object is being Represented in some way, shape or form.
• The Audience for that media text will make sense of it using their personal and shared experiences
• The text also contains a Narrative, be it a photograph of war or some bad gangsta lyrics about pimping your uncle
• The text didn't evolve from bacteria, it was constructed by a media Institution for financial purposes and has elements of theirIdeology embedded within the text.
• It was produced using some Technology, be it DTP (Desk Top Publishing software) or hardware
• The Evidence is the product itself which you can then reference against other Experiences you've had with similar Media
• Get it?!

A2 Media : Industry Regulation & Censorship

View the slideshow presentation at :

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/rmayers-376775-ocr-regulation-censorship-media-studies-education-ppt-powerpoint/

A2 Media : The Wire

The Wire and the Serial Procedural

By Jason Mittell

<1> The Wire is paradigmatic of a critical darling – few people watch it (at least in the numbers typical of commercial television), but it generates adoration and evangelism by nearly all who do. Television critics have taken it upon themselves to lobby their readers to give the show a chance, asking reluctant viewers to overlook its dark and cynical worldview to see the truth and beauty offered by its searing vision into the bleak heart of the American city. Thankfully for us scattered fans, HBO has allowed the show to continue for five seasons, even without a clear sense that the show’s dedicated fandom leads to overt profitability.

<2> What is most interesting to me about the critical praise deservedly lavished uponThe Wire is not how it may or may not yield an increase in viewership, but how the critical consensus seems to situate the show distinctly within the frame of another medium. For many critics, bloggers, fans, and even creator David Simon himself,The Wire is best understood not as a television series, but as a “visual novel.” As a television scholar, this cross-media metaphor bristles – not because I don’t like novels, but because I love television. And I believe that television at its best shouldn’t be understood simply as emulating another older and more culturally valued medium. The Wire is a masterpiece of television, not a novel that happens to be televised, and thus should be understood, analyzed, and celebrated on its own medium’s terms.

<3> Yet thinking comparatively across media can be quite rewarding as a critical exercise, illuminating what makes a particular medium distinctive and how its norms and assumptions might be rethought. So before considering how the show operates televisually, what does thinking of The Wire as a novel teach us about the show? And might other cross-media metaphors yield other critical insights?

From the Literary to the Ludic

<4> The Wire’s novelistic qualities are most directly linked to its storytelling structure and ambitions. As Simon attests in frequent interviews and commentary tracks, he is looking to tell a large sweeping story that has traditionally been the purview of the novel, at least within the realm of culturally legitimate formats. He highlights how each season offers its own structural integrity, much like a specific book within a larger epic novel, and each episode stands as a distinct chapter in that book. The model, modestly left unspoken, might be War and Peace, a vast narrative containing fifteen “books,” each subdivided into at least a dozen chapters and released serially over five years.

<5> In The Wire, each season focuses on a particular facet of Baltimore and slowly builds into a cohesive whole. An episode typically does not follow the self-contained logic of most television programming, as storylines are introduced gradually and major characters might take weeks to appear. “Novelistic” is an apt term for describing this storytelling structure, as we rarely dive into a novel expecting the first chapter to typify the whole work as a television pilot is designed to do—Simon emphasizes how the show requires patience to allow stories to build and themes to accrue, a mode of engagement he suggests is more typical of reading than viewing. Enhancing the show’s novelistic claims is the presence of well-regarded crime fiction writers like George Pelecanos, Richard Price, and Dennis Lehane on the writing staff.

<6> This parallel to the novel brings with it not just an imagined structure and scope, but a host of assumed cultural values as well. While the novel’s history in the 18^thand 19^th centuries featured numerous contestations over the form’s aesthetic and cultural merits, by the time television emerged in the mid-20^th century, the literary novel’s cultural role as among the most elite and privileged storytelling formats was firmly ensconced. As the most popular and culturally influential form of storytelling, television has usurped the role the early novel played as a lowbrow mass medium threatening to corrupt its readers and demean cultural standards.

<7> By asserting The Wire as a televised novel, Simon and critics are attempting to legitimize and validate the demeaned television medium by linking it to the highbrow cultural sphere of literature. The phrase “televised novel” functions as an oxymoron in its assumed cultural values, much like the term “soap opera” juxtaposes the extremities of art and commerce into a cultural contradiction. For The Wire, especially in its context of HBO’s slogan “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO,” the link to the novel rescues the show from the stigmas of its televised form, raising it above the commercialized swamp of ephemera imagined by many as typical television. But I would contend that emphasizing the literary facets of The Wire obscures many of its virtues and qualities, setting it up to fail when measured by the aesthetic aims of the novel.

<8> While any form as diverse as the novel cannot be firmly defined as dependent on any singular theme or formal quality, we can point to some key features common to many novels that The Wire seems not to share. Novels typically probe the interior lives of its characters, both through plots that center upon character growth and transformations, and through the scope of narration that accesses characters’ thoughts and beliefs. Even novels about a broad range of people and institutions often ground their vision of the world through the experiences of one or more central characters who transform through the narrative drive.

<9> Simon has suggested that The Wire is a show about the relationship between individuals and institutions, a claim that the program seems to uphold. But I would argue that the point of emphasis is much more clearly on institutions rather than individuals, as within each of the social systems that the show explores—the police, the drug trade, the shipyard, city government, the educational system—the institution is brought into focus through the lens of numerous characters. Certainly McNulty is a central point of access to understand police bureaucracy and functions nominally as the show’s main character, but by season four he is in the margins while characters like Daniels, Colvin, and Bunk provide alternate entry points to explore the police system. Likewise we experience the drug trade through a range of characters from D’Angelo to Stringer, Omar to Cutty. While all of these characters have depth and complexity, we rarely see much of their existence beyond how they fit into their institutional roles—even romantic relationships seem to foreground inter-institutional links between police, lawyers, and politicians more than interpersonal bonds deepening characters’ inner lives and motivations. The chronic alcoholism and infidelity of The Wire’s police officers offers a portrait less of flawed personalities than of a flawed institution—the police admire the systematic discipline and coordination of Barksdale’s crew, which is distinctly lacking in the Baltimore Police Department.

<10> This is not to suggest that characters in The Wire are flat or merely cardboard cutouts to enact a social simulation. One of the show’s most masterful features is its ability to create achingly human characters out of the tiniest moments and subtle gestures—Lester sanding doll furniture, D’Angelo picking out his clothes, Bubbles walking through “Hamsterdam” trying to find himself. But the way The Wire portrays its characters is distinctly not novelistic—we get no internal monologues or speeches articulating characters’ deep thoughts, no sense of deep character goals or transformations motivating the dramatic actions. Character depth is conveyed through the texture of everyday life on the job, a set of operating systems that ultimately work to dehumanize the characters at nearly every turn. As Simon notes,

The Wire has… resisted the idea that, in this post-modern America, individuals triumph over institutions. The institution is always bigger. It doesn’t tolerate that degree of individuality on any level for any length of time. These moments of epic characterization are inherently false. They’re all rooted in, like, old Westerns or something. Guy rides into town, cleans up the town, rides out of town. There’s no cleaning it up anymore. There’s no riding in, there’s no riding out. The town is what it is. (quoted in Mills)

In the show’s character logic, the institution is the defining element in a character’s life, externalized through practices, behaviors, and choices that deny individuality and agency, a storytelling structure that seems contrary to core principles of the literary novel.

<11> Thus the metaphoric postulation of The Wire as a televised novel might yield some structural insights and offers cultural reverberations, but also provides red herrings and dead ends to understanding the show’s narrational strategies and method of representing complex systems. Ultimately I contend that we should viewThe Wire using the lens of its actual medium of television to best understand and appreciate its achievements and importance. But there are significant insights to be gained through the logic of cross-media frameworks, viewing a text through the expectations and assumptions of another form to understand its particular cultural logic. Might other media metaphors be similarly useful, within limits, to help unravelThe Wire? I would like to suggest that ultimately it might be useful to view the program using the lens a seemingly off-base medium, and thus offer a brief detour to answer an unlikely question—how might we conceive of The Wire as a videogame?

<12> Let me preemptively acknowledge one significant limitation here. Obviously watching The Wire is non-interactive, at least not in the explicit mode that Eric Zimmerman argues typifies games (158). But then again, watching a game like baseball is also non-interactive—despite my ritualized efforts to superstitiously trigger my team’s good fortune via carefully chosen clothing, gestures, and behaviors, ultimately I’ve failed to alter the outcome of any Red Sox game (at least as far as I know). In thinking about a filmed series like The Wire as a game, we need to think of the ludic elements within the show’s diegesis, not the interactive play that we expect when booting up a videogame. Thus The Wire might be thought of as a spectatorial game, being played on screen for the benefit of an audience.

<13> Games certainly play a more crucial role within The Wire’s storyworld than literature, as nearly every episode has at least one reference to “the game.” Within the show’s portrait of Baltimore, games are played in all venues—the corners, City Hall, the police station, the union hall—and by a range of players—street-level junkies looking to score, corrupt politicians filling campaign coffers, cops bucking for promotion, stevedores trying to maintain the docks. “The game” is the overarching metaphor for urban struggle, as everyone must play or get played—as Marla Daniels tries to warn her husband Cedric, “the game is rigged – you can’t lose if you don’t play” (episode 1.2). Sometimes characters are playing the same game, as the chase between the cops and Barksdale’s crew develops into a series of moves and counter-moves, but some institutions operate in a different game altogether—in season 1, the cops go to the FBI for help busting Barksdale’s drug and money-laundering system, but the feds are only playing the terrorism and political corruption game. Ultimately, Stringer Bell is brought down by trying to play two games at once, and gets caught when the rules of the drug game conflicts with the corporate game.

<14> David Simon has suggested that the show’s goal is to “portray systems and institutions and be honest with ourselves and viewers about how complex these problems are” (Zurawik). While Simon imagines that the televised novel is the form best suited to accomplish such goals, in today’s media environment, videogames are the go-to medium for portraying complex systems. As Janet Murray writes, “the more we see life in terms of systems, the more we need a system-modeling medium to represent it—and the less we can dismiss such organized rule systems as mere games” (quoted in Moulthrop 64). If novels foreground characterization and interiority in ways that The Wire seems to deny, videogames highlight the complexity of interrelated systems and institutions that are one of the show’s strengths.

<15> Many videogames are predicated on the logic of simulating complex systems, modeling an interrelated set of practices and protocols to explore how one choice ripples through an immersive world. We might imagine The Wire’s Baltimore as the televisual adaptation of the landmark game SimCity. In the first season, we walkthrough the police’s attempt to take-down Barksdale’s drug operation, concluding in a “checkmate” scene where Barksdale and Bell yield to the police’s final moves (1.12), but resulting in a stalemate that no players deem victorious—a few criminals get sentenced, but the Barksdale machine remains intact. Season three offers a replay with some changed variables and strategies for all sides—what if drugs are decriminalized? What if the drug trade goes legit through conglomeration rather than violent competition? What if a former soldier repents and tries to give back to his community? Given the show’s cynical vision of corrupt institutions, reform typically produces various forms of failure, as the parameters of the system are too locked-in to truly produce social change or allow for an imagined solution to systemic problems. Yet the ludic joy of the third season is the ability to replay the first season’s narrative through the imagination of new rules and ways to play the game.

<16> Ultimately the characters in The Wire, while quite human and multi-dimensional, are as narrowly defined in their possibilities as typical videogame avatars. They each do what they do because that is the way the game is played—Bubbles can’t get clean, McNulty can’t follow orders, Avon can’t stop fighting for his corners, Sobotka can’t let go of the glory days of the shipyard. The characters with agency to change, like Stringer Bell, D’Angelo Barksdale, or Bunny Colvin, find the systems too resistant, the “boss levels” too difficult, to overcome the status quo. The show offers a game that resists agency, a system impervious to change, yet the players keep playing because that is all they know how to do. The opening scene in the series shows McNulty interviewing a witness to a murder, killed after trying to rob a craps game; even though the victim tried to “snatch and run” every Friday night, the witness says that they had to let him play, because “it’s America, man” (1.1). The game must be played, no matter the cost. Throughout the series, the moments of greatest conflict are where a player steps over the line and breaks the unwritten rules of his institution—shooting Omar on Sunday morning, Carver leaking information about Daniels, Nick going beyond smuggling to enter the drug trade. In the show’s representation of Baltimore, the game is more than a metaphor—it is the social contract that barely holds the world together.

<17> If my account is correct that the videogame medium offers more insight into what makes The Wire an innovative and successful program than the novel, why wouldn’t Simon or other critics highlight this cross-media parallel as well? One answer is obvious—it helps legitimize the show by comparing it to the highbrow respectable literary form rather than the more derided and marginalized medium. And, of course, I do believe that Simon and his co-writers do conceive of their practices as fitting with their conceptions of what the novel can do, with “the game” serving as only a metaphor for the desolate lives of their characters and institutions. But through my own little game here, reading The Wire for the anthology Third Person through the analytic lens of its previous game studies iteration of First Person, we can see both the possibilities and limitations of analyzing a text through the framework of what it is not—ultimately, the best insights about the show can be found by looking at it for what it is: a masterful example of television storytelling.

The Serialized Procedural

<18> Placing The Wire in the context of television storytelling helps understand why Simon felt compelled to frame his series as atypical of television beyond the implied cultural hierarchies. Upon its debut in 2002, television was in the midst of a distinctive shift in its storytelling strategies and possibilities, exploring a mode of narrative complexity I have analyzed elsewhere (Mittell 2006). Simon’s previous work in television was primarily on the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street that was based on his journalistic book; Homicide’s producers were constantly battling network requests to make plots more conclusive and uplifting, adding hopeful resolution to its bleak vision of urban murder. But in the decade between Homicide’s 1993 premiere and The Wire’s debut, many programs offered innovations in complex long-form television storytelling, including The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The West Wing, Alias, 24, and most importantly for Simon’s own program, HBO’s critically acclaimed offerings of Oz, The Sopranos, and Six Feet Under. Thus while Simon frames his series primarily in novelistic terms in opposition to his frustrations working on Homicide, there were many key televised precedents for long-form gradual storytelling for him to draw upon.

<19> The Wire does, of course, draw upon a number of televisual traditions, mostly in its position within genre categories. The police drama is an obvious link, but an uncomfortable one—unlike nearly all cop shows, The Wire spends as much time on the criminals as the police, and as the seasons progress, other civic institutions take over the dramatic center. The show belongs more to a non-existent category of “urban drama,” documenting a city’s systemic decay; thematically, police dramas are nearly always about fighting the tide of decay, rather than contributing to its demise. In spirit if not execution, The Wire harkens back to the critically hailed but little seen social issue dramas of the early-1960s, like East Side/West Side and The Defenders, but given the new industrial framework of premium cable television, The Wire can survive as a bleak social statement without reaching a mass audience, a luxury its 1960s network counterparts could not afford.

<20> What the show does share directly with many cop show precedents is its focus on procedure. Dragnet pioneered the television cop show in the 1950s, inventing both the formal and cultural vocabulary of the police procedural. Although it reads as a mannered caricature today, in its day Dragnet represented the height of gripping authenticity, offering viewers a gritty noir view into the underbelly of Los Angeles and a celebration of the police who protect it. The show’s narrative scope focused on the functional machinery of the police world, presenting a form of “systemic realism” that sublimated character depth to institutional logic (Mittell 2004, 137). WhileDragnet did distill the larger institution into the perspective of Detective Joe Friday and his assorted partners, creator/producer/star Jack Webb designed the show for Friday to be viewed as “just one little cog in a great enforcement machine” (quoted in Mittell 2004, 126), and played the character to generate a cog-like emotional engagement and redirect focus on the minute details of police procedures. The legacy of Dragnet’s procedural tone lives on in the long-running Law & Order andC.S.I. franchises, each of which offer just enough emotional investment in their institutional workers to engage viewers, but ultimately hook them with twisty mysteries each week to be solved by effective forensic detection or prosecution.

<21> The Wire manages to produce both emotional investment in its characters and a detailed eye for procedures. The opening credits of each season typify the show’s focus—characters are obscured and abstracted into close-ups of body parts, machinery, and icons of city life. What matters in the credits, and arguably the series as a whole, is less who is doing the actions, but more the practices of institutional urban life themselves: the policing, drug slinging, political bribing, and bureaucratic buck-passing that comprise the essence of the show’s portrait of Baltimore in decay. The Wire offers a veritable how-to lesson on the police procedures of wire tapping, shipyard tracking, and surveillance, as well as less sanctioned practices of drug distribution, smuggling, and bribery. While traditional police procedurals have documented the practices of detection and prosecution as evidence of a functional and robust criminal justice system, The Wire’s procedural detail shows official systems that cannot match the discipline, creativity, and flexibility of criminals, both outside and within the city payroll, thus offering a cynical vision of a police system playing out a losing hand.

<22> The show’s formal style supports its claims to authenticity. While it avoidsDragnet’s procedural voiceover narration, The Wire shares a similar commitment to underplaying drama and allowing the onscreen dialogue and action tell the story. The show refuses to use non-diegetic music except to conclude each season, and minimizing camera movement and flashy editing, allowing performances and writing to tell the story with a naturalistic visual style. Unlike many of its contemporary shows employing complex narrative strategies, The Wire avoids flashbacks, voice-over, fantasy sequences, repetition from multiple perspectives, or reflexive commentary on the narrative form itself (see Mittell 2006). In terms of how the show stylistically tells its story, The Wire appears more akin to conventional procedurals like Law & Order than contemporary innovators like The Sopranos or 24, sharing a commitment to authenticity and realism typified by a minimized documentary-style aesthetic that Simon summarizes: “Less is more. Explaining everything to the slowest or laziest member of the audience destroys verisimilitude and reveals the movie itself, rather than the reality that the movie is trying to convey” (Simon 2006).

<23> While its attention to procedural details, authenticity, and verisimilitude might rival any show in television history, ultimately The Wire diverges from one defining attribute of the police procedural. Typically procedurals, whether focusing on police precincts, medical practices, or private detectives, are devoutly episodic in structure—each week, one or more cases gets discovered, processed, and resolved, rarely to reappear or even be remembered in subsequent episodes. On The Wire, cases last an entire season or beyond, and everything that happens is remembered with continuing repercussions throughout the storyworld—lessons are learned, grudges are deepened, stakes are raised. The show demands audiences to invest in their diegetic memories by rewarding detailed consumption with narrative payoffs—for instance, a first season bust of an aide to Senator Clay Davis adds little to that season’s arc, but it sets-up a major plotline of seasons 3 and 4. If Dragnet represents the prototype of the episodic procedural with 100s of interchangeable episodes, The Wire is on the other end of television’s narrational spectrum, with each episode in the series demanding to be viewed in sequence and strict continuity. Thus The Wire functions as what might be television’s only example of a serialized procedural.

<24> How does The Wire structure its balance between serial and episodic storylines? In many examples of television’s contemporary narrative complexity, individual episodes maintain a coherent and steady structure, even when they primarily function as part of a larger storytelling arc (Mittell 2006; Newman 2006). Individual episodes typically offer one self-contained plotline to be resolved while others function primarily within larger season arcs—for instance, Veronica Mars typically introduces and resolves one new mystery each week, while longer character and investigative arcs proceed alongside that week’s stand-alone plot. Other shows use structural devices to identify distinct episodes, such as Lost’s designation of a specific character’s flashbacks each week or Six Feet Under’s “death-of-the-week” structure. The Wire offers very little episodic unity—while each episode is certainly structured to deliver narrative engagement and payoffs, it is hard to isolate any identifying characteristics of a single episode in the way that a show like The Sopranos has particular identifying markers, such as “the college trip” or “the Russian in the woods.” In this way, The Wire does fit Simon’s novelistic ideals, as individual chapters are best viewed as part of a cohesive whole, not as stand-alone entries. Thus The Wire is at once one of television’s most serialized programs, yet also uniquely focused more on institutional procedures and actions than character relationships and emotional struggles that typify most serialized dramas.

<25> What are the impacts of this unique narrative form of the serialized procedural, beyond just a formal innovation with its own pleasurable rewards? Dragnet and subsequent police procedurals represent law enforcement as an efficient machine, a perspective that the narrative form reinforces—by offering a weekly glimpse of how cases are solved and justice is served, the genre supports an underlying ideology of support for the status quo to reassure viewers about the functional state system to protect and serve. Even Homicide’s cynical and downbeat vision of law enforcement offers resolution if not reassurance through its closed narrative structures. On The Wire, the ongoing investigations rarely close and never resolve with any ideological certainties or reassurances, heroic victories or emotional releases. When McNulty allows his pride to swell in recognition that their detail are made up of elite “natural police,” Lester knocks him down, pointing out that even if they close a big case, there will be no “parade, a gold watch, a shining Jimmy McNulty Day moment” (3.9). Even if a resolution to a case arrives, the show refuses closure or any sense of justice being served. Refusing ideological closure or offering any easy answers to solving the complex systemic problems documented in The Wire, in the end it’s all just a game with another hand waiting to be dealt.

<26> The Wire’s game logic returns to the fore here. Many of television’s complex narratives employ a puzzle structure to motivate viewer interest, inspiring fans to watch shows like Lost, Veronica Mars, and Heroes with a forensic eye for details to piece together the mysteries and enigmas encoded within their serial structures. Despite being centered on crimes and detectives, The Wire offers almost no mysteries—we typically know who the criminals are and what they did. Even though the second season begins with an unsolved murder of a shipping container full of Eastern European prostitutes, the whodunit is downplayed in the narrative drive, with the final revelation becoming almost an afterthought with the focus shifted to the larger system of corruption and smuggling. Instead of mysteries, the show’s narrative is focused on the game between competing systems, with suspense and tension generated through anticipation of what procedures will pay off for each side, and how the various sides will end up before the next round is played. The cultural logic of traditional mysteries is based upon a belief in functional institutions of justice being able to solve and punish crime; in The Wire’s cynical vision, mysteries are only obstacles to improving clearance rates for homicide detectives, or disruptions in the functioning machinery of a criminal operation.

<27> The procedural focus of The Wire can be viewed as tied not only to television traditions, but also to the mechanics of gameplay. Within the world of game studies, the term procedural conjures far different connotations than Dragnet and C.S.I.; procedural authorship is seen by some as the essence of coding gameplay or “procedural narrative,” outlining the operations that render the storyworld and player agency (Murray 1997; Mateas & Stern 2007). Although The Wire’s procedural language is not written in binary, each Baltimore institution has an underlying code, from the rules of the drug game’s parlay to the racial rotation in electing union leaders. The show frequently highlights what happens when conflicting codes overlap, as with Stringer’s attempt to bring Robert’s Rules of Order to the meetings of drug dealers, or Colvin’s détente in the drug war to create Hamsterdam—such procedural conflicts trigger the complex social simulation needed to represent the urban environment.

<28> Ultimately it is through its focus on procedure, at the levels of action, play, and code, that The Wire generates its verisimilitude, creating a ludic engagement with the SimCity of 21^st century Baltimore. HBO brands its offerings as “not TV,” and in some ways The Wire delivers, offering a mode of storytelling untried in commercial American television, with a tone and outlook antithetical to the medium’s cultural role as a consensus-building vehicle for selling products. But in its innovation, The Wire does reframe what television can do, how stories can be told—perhaps inspired by the novel but referencing the cultural form of games, the show ultimately presents a new model of serial procedurality that offers a probing social investigation of the urban condition. And as the players remind us, “it’s all in the game.”

A2 Media : Snog, Marry, Avoid

Snog, Marry, Avoid will save us from our tears

•  Mark Ravenhill The Guardian, Monday 4 May 2009

Snog, Marry, Avoid Photograph: BBC/Endemol UK/Endemol UK

 

Sentiment is not very British. For most of our history, we've been a sturdy, bluff breed, only occasionally journeying into the realms of the sentimental. And when we have, it's never been a pretty sight. There have been two great ages of sentiment. The first began at the end of the 18th century, when the newly powerful middle class, looking to assert themselves over the coarse peasantry and the often coarser aristocracy, invented a new way of being. They emphasised politeness - a new system of morals and manners - and sentiment. Weeping decorously at a novel or poem and suffering from nerves and melancholy indicated that you belonged to the ascendant class.

Of course, not everyone played the game. The fightback started almost immediately: Jane Austen's novels are partly driven by a need to satirise, and so correct, this new fashion. Austen wanted to see more sense and less sensibility, but soon everyone was at it. It took most of the Victorian era for sentiment to be worked out of our system. The second age of sentiment began a decade or so ago. Perhaps as a way of distancing ourselves from the harshness of the Thatcher years, perhaps because we've embraced a more American identity, the last 10 years have seen us weeping and hugging as never before. Princess Diana, in life and in death, was the cheerleader of the new sentimentality. And now we've all been infected by it. The money shot on any talent show or makeover programme is the moment the contestant breaks into tears.

Recently, I found myself in a lift at the BBC with the novelist AS Byatt, who told me: "I can't get my creative writing students to write about anything but the character's feelings. I tell them I don't care about people's feelings. But they don't listen to me." Well, I've got good news for AS Byatt, and for anyone else who's sickened by this glut of feelings. The darkest days may be behind us. I think I've spotted a green shoot of recovery. It's a makeover show on BBC3. It may just be the beginning of the end for the society of sentiment. It's called Snog, Marry, Avoid.
Each programme takes three young women who are heavy on makeup and light on clothing. Citing Jodie Marsh as their role model, these girls spend a week's wages on fake tan and false eyelashes, leaving only a few quid left for the thong they wear for a night on the town. Dragged into a TV studio, they witness members of the public saying whether they would "snog, marry or avoid" them. Inevitably, choices lean heavily towards "avoid". Removed of the makeup, given clothes that come up to the neck and down to the knee, the girls are then once again presented to the public, who overwhelmingly choose "marry".
So far - as I'm sure you've spotted - it's a pretty standard makeover show. But what is extraordinary about the programme is its total lack of tears, hugging and learning. Faced with criticisms of their fakery, the young women simply shrug them off, and gleefully accept the news that most of the public want to avoid them.
Stripping them of their makeup might lead to a few groans, but no one ever sheds a tear. Many of the girls (most are in their early 20s) express disappointment with the "makeunders", which frequently leave them looking like an English teacher who's been given Oasis vouchers for her 50th birthday. They are then paraded in front of a parent or partner who gives a begrudging, "Yeah, you look all right", instead of TV's more traditional heaving sobs and cries of, "I feel like I've got the real Samantha back." And when the young women are visited months later, they've nearly always slipped back into their falsies and out of their clothes. "It's just more fun," they say and, streaky tans and hair extensions back in place, they sashay happily into the sunset.
At first, I found the programme uncomfortable. I was worried that the producers were missing a trick. "Bring on the pseudo-psychologist!" I shouted at the screen. "Give that one some tissues and get her to weep!" But then I realised that Snog, Marry, Avoid was a new type of programme for a new type of Britain, a nation in which we are happy to accept that we're all flawed. Here is a TV show for a world in which we're happy to carry on as we are, a country where we never shed a sentimental tear. If this is the future, things are about to get a lot better.

AS Media : Global Advertising

The Global Economy

What's in your refrigerator and where did it come from? Although it may all have been purchased from your local Tesco's/Sainsbury's/Park'n'Shop/Welcome etc the diverse origins of the food you eat on a daily basis show what a global marketplace we are living in. Bananas from Costa Rica? Mangoes from the Philippines? Mineral water from France? Strawberries from Israel? Chocolate from Switzerland? Orange juice from South Africa? Bread made from wheat grown in America? Argentinean beef? New Zealand lamb? All of it flown fresh to your local supermarket for you to take your pick. The contents of your refrigerator will be very similar to the contents of refrigerators in Sydney, Singapore, Seattle, Salzburg and Shanghai. As you reach for a can of 7-Up you will be dressed in similar clothing (Gap, Nike, Levis, Benetton, Reebok) as your counterparts in Sydney, Singapore, Seattle, Salzburg and Shanghai. You will probably drink it whilst listening to the same CDs/watching the same movie. In many different ways those of us living in the First World in the 21st century are participants in a global economy.

Ever since the first circumnavigation of the world (1519-1521), traders have looked forward to the prospect of a global economy, the free exchange of goods in all different parts of the world. Now, the speed of communication and transport have made that concept much more of a reality, at least in the First World. The sale of products and services is no longer restricted by national or geographical boundaries, especially since the collapse of the USSR. To be truly successful in the marketplace, you have to be successful on a global basis. Many companies have responded to this by extending not just their sales but their operations - thus achieving transnational status. Most big ad agencies fall into this category, with offices in major cities across the world. The speed of modern telecommunications means that, time differences aside, it is possible to run a series of worldwide offices as one, with workers communicating by fax, email, telephone, teleconferencing, and via frequent business trips. It also means that businesses lose their national identity, and, that they become less and less beholden to individual governments and regional regulations. Tax dodges galore.

Many products and services fulfil basic human needs and wants (Maslow again) and there seems to be no good reason why a fizzy drink that sells successfully in Manchester won't be equally successful in Melbourne. This means that, within the context of a global marketplace, the company manufacturing the drink in England could sell it in Australia. However, they need the resources necessary for production and distribution, and they also need to inform their target market about their product. Only very large and ambitious companies can do this (Coca-Cola, Pepsi) and they take advantage of their ability to do so. It is only the successful, global companies that get their fizzy drink into both fridges (and they probably taste slightly different, being manufactured at different bottling plants). But is advertising that persuades the consumer to buy on both continents. Transnational companies rely heavily on advertising to communicate a consistent message to their market.

Hang On, What About Globalisation?

A global economy is only advantageous to manufacturers who have the resources to market and distribute their goods on a global scale, and to consumers who have the wealth to buy those goods. A global economy will really only work in everyone's favour when all trading nations are of a comparable economic status, with similar levels of industrialisation. Lack of equality in our current economic environment means that some nations are in a position to exploit others eg through cheap labour.

However, it seems that economic decisions made from the 19th century onwards (the move towards Free Trade policies, A-level history fans!) mean that a global economy is inevitable, and the process by which it is being achieved is known as globalisation. We're not there yet, and there is a great deal of Darwinian evolution to go on amongst manufacturing companies, but at some point in the future consumer culture will be fairly homogenous. Not completely so. At the moment, there are still strong differences between markets, with different regions showing preferences for different products. These different preferences may arise from something as basic as climate - the market for ski-jackets in Hawaii has never been strong - or may be the result of complex social or religious codes - vodka is not a big seller in Iraq. These differences are not going to disappear overnight, nor should they - the diversity of the human race should not be compromised for financial profit. Nonetheless, there are many products which can be sold to everyone everywhere in the world (Coca-Cola!!).

Advertising's role in all this is complex. Advertising is the channel through which manufacturers communicate with consumers, and this channel becomes doubly important when the manufacturer is from one continent and culture and the consumer is from another. Advertising can. on the one hand, be viewed as the evil agent of globalisation, steamrollering local values and ideals with meaningless global brand identities. On the other hand, it can be seen as route through which products are made relevant to regional markets, and through which global brands are given local identity and significance. It's a heated debate which is going to run and run. Advertising frequently comes a cropper when trying to introduce a product which has been successful in one market elsewhere, often for simple reasons of mistranslation. 

And the Role of the Internet?

Until the advent of the Internet in the early 1990s, advertising did not have a truly global, non-time-specific medium. The World Wide Web provides 24/7 access to promotional material for interested audience, and as such, has given a new boost to advertising as an industry. The jury is still out on web-based advertising - after all, a "click rate" of less than 1% on banner ads (when did you last click on one?) suggests that the audience is not really getting the message. However, as Bill Gates confidently predicted back in 1996, virtually all print ads you see nowadays contain a URL where consumers can find out more. This seems to be the key role of the internet - as a provider of product information. The problem is getting consumers to visit your site in the first place, and traditional advertising is increasingly acting as a teaser for the website.

The Internet is seen by many as an evil tool of globalisation, particularly in its present form, where it is more and more commercially driven, and more and more reliant on flash advertising. The internet was originally the preserve of academics and enthusiasts, with the main purpose of sharing information. What is it now?

How Does Advertising Work on A Global Basis?

It would seem logical to assume that an ad campaign which successfully sells a product in one region may work well in another, particularly if those two regions both speak the same language. Good advertising is about the effective communication of a simple message. However, there is still much discussion of how this works in practice - is advertising, inevitably, glocal - a combination of global ideas and local execution? For instance, a print ad or TVC may be shot using three different models, with different skin tones, for airing or publishing in different regions.

When thinking and writing about this topic, you will need to consider the following issues:

• Is it an industry with a worldwide standard for dealing with clients, for production, for processes? Are ad agencies transnational companies?
• Are ad campaigns, in essence, the same the world over, with just minor changes made as regards language etc?
• Could a major transnational company have just one Director Of Marketing at their Head Office in wherever, and simply employ ad agencies as translators and co-ordinators?
• Is advertising a major contributor to globalisation or just a consequence of it?
• Or is advertising something regional? Do different regional branches of agencies have differing policies? Would you advertise, say Coke in the same way in Indiana and Indonesia?
• Is advertising about subscribing to a local culture rather than over-riding it?

AS Media : Analysing Images

Deconstructing - or picking images apart through the use of fine detail - is an essential part of studying the media. Media texts are largely constructed of images, and we take our visual literacy - our ability to read and understand these images - largely for granted. However, in Media Studies we need to be able to explain that decoding process, and describe the steps taken which allow us to derive meaning A from text B.

However, deconstruction is only the first part of the process - never forget the purpose of a text, and that your image analysis should include a consideration of ideology, audience theory, representation and genre.

You may also find the technical terminology for describing camera angles useful.

Deconstruction

Two processes used during deconstruction are denotation and connotation, key words for Media Studes, and ones that should appear in every piece of textual analysis you write.

Denotation or first level of signification

Identification and definition of elements of a text on a basic, dictionary level - this thing is red, it is a bicycle. Denotational readings will be common to a large number of people - the audience of a text will all identify the object as a red bicycle (if they know what a bicycle is...)

Connotation or second level of signification

Connotation begins when you link an object with other signs and meanings - the bicycle might belong to a teenager and therefore suggest adolescence. It is red, therefore it is bright and eyecatching and might therefore connote that its owner is an extrovert. If you once fell off a bicycle yourself and smashed your leg up then you may associate this bicycle with negativity and pain. Connotations are numerous, and vary from reader to reader.

When analysing an image, whether moving or still, we examine how the different elements, arranged and framed in the way that they are, combine to form meaning.

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Mise En Scène

This term (which loosely means 'putting things in the picture' or 'arranging the frame') concerns the design and arrangement of the image. Every element of an image contributes to its meaning, and much time and thought is devoted to mise en scène by the creators of an image. Although an audience's attention may be focused on characters in the foreground, they will also be looking at the background for additional clues to meaning. For example, two characters having an argument in a softly lit bedroom, with many pillows, pastel colours, throw rugs, and Martha Stewart style room accessories are not seen to be as dangerously conflicting as two characters arguing in a deserted warehouse, under a naked lightbulb, surrounded by the jagged angles of torn-apart packing crates, with concrete, not deep-pile carpet under their feet.

Mise-en-scène includes costumes, props, lighting, characters (as represented by actors or models), special effects, sound effects and anything else which is "put into the frame". The level of a image's realism relies heavily on mise en scène.

In film, the term mise en scène refers to a stylistic technique, where long takes and the continuous movement of the camera which focus on the details of a scene are used to create meaning. This is the opposite of montage, where meaning is created through constant cutting. You may also encounter the term mise en shot which refers to the movement of the camera and the size of the shot, plus additional technical considerations such as lens type. Mise-en-scène is the domain of the director and the designer, mise en shot is controlled by the photographer or cinematographer.

• The tools of mise en scène
• Mise en scène in video games - how to create immersion for your players

Organisation

As well as scrutinising the components of an image, it is vital that the whole organisation of the shot is considered. Whenever anyone points a camera, or lays out a page, they make gatekeeping decisions about exactly what their audience see or don't see. In representing an idea through imagery, they choose to highlight certain elements and play down others. The simplest form of this process is to look through a camera viewfinder and decide where to point it before taking your picture. The two things that you consider, even if only for a split second, are framing and composition.

Composition

The composition of an image is simply what it is made up of. An image will display a series of objects or people, and when referring to its compostion we look at their arrangement within the picture. Often we infer meaning through two objects relationship with each other. Is one depicted as larger? More central? Better lit? How much space is there surrounding the objects?

Apart from arranging objects within the picture, another decision that is made in composition is focus, or depth of field. This dictates the depth into the picture in which objects are in clear focus. You may decide to blur out the background, in order to place more emphasis on central or foreground objects. or you may decide to have everything in your picture in equal focus, for instance in a landscape shot, or a group photo.

• 
  Framing

Framing —deciding where an image begins and ends — is as vital to the meaning of an image as composition. There are a whole variety of camera angles which can be selected to frame a shot (see left button bar), and often what is left out is as important as what is included. What is beyond the picture, for instance, what could a model be looking at, is the source of much ambiguity and enigma. We infer meaning from the relationship between the camera and subject (a close up is intimate,

By framing two objects together in the same image, we imply a connection between them, especially if there is a physical link, perhaps through a graphic or colour, between them. If the connection is unusual (juxtaposition), we are forced to consider it more carefully and this may alter our reading

By isolating an object within the frame - for instance showing a swimmer against an expanse of nothing but sea - we can make them seem insignificant and lonely. Are characters surrounded by others (trapped? loved?) or do they have space (power? insecurity?). Are they where they need to

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Technical Codes:

Lighting

Lighting is part of the mise-en-scene, and is one of the deliberate choices made

Natural

or

Artificial Light

Most photographs you see that make part of print ads or magazine illustrations use artifical light. Moving images commonly use artifical light too - traditionally film stock was not sensitive enough to respond to any but the brightest of daylight (FACT FANS: this is why Los Angeles became a centre for film production back in the 1900s - they have approximately nine months of sunshine in a year). However, with new digital technologies, natural lighting is increasingly used by film-makers, although most mainstream producers still prefer the control that artificial lighting techniques give them.

When examining any lighting set up, you need to consider the following:

• Where is the light coming from (front, sides or back)?
• How intense is the light, and what time of day might it be said to represent?

Most commonly, three point lighting is used: there is a filter in PhotoShop that will let you play around with the different effects of this. 

Key	The main source of light on the subject, usually coming from around 45° above and either to the left or the right of the camera
Fill	This is a soft light, which, as it name suggests, fills in the shadows, to avoid sharp areas of contrast caused by the main light.
Back	This comes from, obviously, behind the subject, and makes it stand out agains the background

The important thing to remember about lighting is that shadow is just as important. We see patterns of light and dark - that is how our eyes create images, and we read both light and its absence as equally significant. The whole meaning of an image can be changed if you alter the shadows.

Colour

Colour is an important part of mise-en-scene in that it creates mood and atmosphere. Whilst still photographers have always spent time connecting subject to background through the use of colour, film-makers are increasingly using some very stylised methods, taking advantage of digital post-production techniques. The Director of Photography has more control than ever over the colour palette used in a scene. Look at the way a movie like SWEENEY TODD or WATCHMEN appears drenched in certain colors at certain points. Art Direction and costume also have a big part to play in setting mood through colour.

Colours are powerful and complex codes, and we read them according to our culture.