Ideology

Ideology is a concept that we need to understand and apply to our analysis and construction of media texts.

Ideology is defined as a world view, a system or set of values, beliefs or attitudes that an individual, a group or society hold to be true or important.  

When analysing a media text you might look to identify a dominant ideology.  These our ideologies that are repeatedly communicated to us by important social institutions such as the media, the church, the Government, the law and educational establishments.  These our ideologies that we live by in our day to day lives and often do not question as they have become natural common sense things that we believe. 

These dominant ideologies effectively dissuade us from rebelling against these beliefs and maintains an air of moral stability within our society.

Dominant ideologies include beliefs about gender roles, marriage, family, sexuality, religion, about tradition and heritage, about the economy and about social institutions.

Consumerism has become a dominant ideology in the western economies since the industrial revolution.  It is based upon the principle that a person is happier if he or she has more material possessions and by consuming more and more material goods.

Common examples of ideologies include;

Committing a crime is against the law and if you commit a crime you need to punished.

Education is to be valued and you should go to school to gain qualifications to become a valued member of society with a responsible job.


How could you identify the ideology of a music magazine?  What does it value or hold as important?

Does it value new music? Does it value live music events?  Does it value up and coming artists?  Does it place importance upon particular genres or styles of music?  Does it value promoting particular lifestyles or products?  Does it value a narrow range of music or a broad range of music? Does it value influential artists from the past?  Does it value a particular social group?  Does it believe that music is important?  Does it believe buying music is important?

How is this conveyed? How do you know this?  What evidence do you have to support your view?

Answering these questions will help you to establish the ideologies present in the media texts you analyse and in those you construct.

National Readership Survey

You will be able to find out key information about the audience of your media text analysis by accessing the NRS website at 

www.nrs.co.uk

NME Press/ Media Pack

The media or press pack for your chosen magazine textual analysis will help you to identify the core reader and their values.  It will give you key information about who the readers are of your text and what they value in life.

This is an example from IPC the publishing institution behind NME.

The JICNAR Scale

The JICNAR Scale

(Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Surveys)

Media producers use this scale in order to help identify and target a specific demographic. There  are six elements to the scale and they are identified as follows:

Group A (Professionals)

Upper middle class, e.g. Barristers, Doctors, Executives

Group B (Managerial)

Middle class, e.g. Bank Managers, Teachers

Group C1 (Non-Manual)

Lower middle class, white collar workers, e.g. Office Workers

Group C2 (Manual)

Skilled working class, Blue collar workers, e.g. Car Mechanic, Machine operators, Construction workers

Group D (Partly Skilled)

Semi or unskilled manual workers, e.g. Assembly line worker

Group E (Unskilled)

Casual workers, dependent on state benefits, students 

REPRESENTATION

REPRESENTATION ISSUES TO CONSIDER

•As you develop your research and ideas you will need to consider the representations exist within existing products and the representations that you will construct in your own products:

•Representation in the media is concerned with how individual and groups of people, events and ideas are presented to audiences. What we see, hear and read in the media is a re-presentation of a subject it is not a real version of events it is constructed. Even a live broadcast is a representation, because you only see what is filmed by the camera operator. As a media studies student, it is important that you are able to identify and understand these representations in the products and texts that you analyse and that you construct.

•You must show evidence of considering these representations in your own work and using them to construct your products and texts if you are to reach the higher grades.

Questions you must ask yourself about your own ideas    

•How have different genders been represented?
•How have different age groups been represented?
•How have different races or religions been represented?
•Have any other groups been represented? If so, why?
•Have any other groups been deliberately unrepresented? If so, why?
•How accurate is the representation? Is it positive or negative? Is it sympathetic or unsympathetic?  How is it intended to make the audience feel? Why?
•Can the representation be interpreted in different ways?  Explain how.
•How is the representation constructed and why?
•What effect does the representation have on the intended audience?
•You should consider the representation of men and women.
•You should consider the representation of good versus evil or of other binary oppositions at play in your narrative.
•How is the representation of ideologies portrayed?

Detailed Analysis and Textual Reading of a Music Magazine using PREZi

You will produce a detailed analysis and textual reading of your chosen music magazine as a PREZi that you will link directly to your blog.

Once you have created a PREZi account you will start to record the research and analysis notes that you take in class in your books.

You will focus upon technical and visual aspects as well as the key concepts of 

• language
• institution
• audience 
• representation

You will provide a clear understanding of these with reference to the front cover, contents page, double page spread and a full page advert from your chosen magazine.

You will include denotation and connotation where appropriate in your analysis.  This will be presented upon your PREZi with visual reference points to the media text.

This will be our focus in class until we break up for half term and then will be completed at home over the holiday.  

The deadline for completion is Monday 4th November.

Narrative Theory Assignment

In your books you are to complete a research assignment on 'Narrative Theory'.

Explain what we mean in media by narrative.  Give a clear understanding of what narrative means.

You must research the following narrative theorists and their theories.  You must put the information into your own words and it must be presented neatly in your books making use of a range of communication methods including bullet points, lists, images/ drawings, tables, highlighting, underlining, diagrams etc.

The theorists are;

• Tzvetan Todorov
• Jean Claude Levi-Strauss
• Roland Barthes
• Vladimir Propp

Provide some background information on each of the theorists and explain in detail their theories about narrative.  Explain the importance of this in relation to media studies and your study of it.  Explain how you think it will be useful to you in your coursework?

The deadline for completion is 21st October

Contents Development

Keep uploading the development of your products to your blog to show how you are developing technical skills and understanding the elements of media language and conventions of the form. 

Contents Draft Ideas

Once you have completed your layout ideas you need to upload the contents drafts by adding text and images into the document.

Examples of contents pages-what are the key conventions?

Contents page layouts

 These are examples of different layout designs for contents pages.

Contents pages have clear conventions that you must conform to.

Identify on your blog what these key conventions are and then design 2 idea layouts similar to these shown on this page.  
Make sure that you use guidelines to help you to construct your ideas.

Final Front Cover for School Magazine

• When you have completed your final front cover upload it to your blog and evaluate what you have done.
• I want you to explain what new skills you have learnt and what progress you have made whilst completing the drafts and the final media product.

Draft Development

Second Rough Draft for School Mag Front Cover

It is a good idea to develop a few ideas for your front cover by drafting ideas.  This is basically designing ideas and generating alternative ideas.  It will allow you to try things out and to plan for your final idea.  You might try different layouts, fonts and photos to help you decide on what works best.  You might even ask people to access your blog to leave comments to give you feedback on their thoughts.  You can produce as many draft ideas as you like as long as you upload them to your blog and complete the final idea by the deadline date.