Mock Exam - June 2010

Media Mock Exam

Question 1a)

Research into real media products is vital in order to create a professional final product that is of a similar standard. Also, real media products clearly appeal to real audiences, therefore it is important to see how they appeal to their target audience.

When creating a music magazine for my Foundation Portfolio, I did similar product research to identify what made a music magazine successful. I looked at three of the most successful music magazines, NME, Q and Rolling Stones. These were all closely related to the genre of magazine I intended to create. Through deconstructing multiple front covers, I discovered that magazines of this genre tended to feature bands on the front cover, and this informed my final product, which featured a four piece band. As music magazines are generally targeted at audiences that have a particular interest in music itself, as opposed to the celebrities, this caused me to consider how I was going to write the article. This meant that the article’s questions focused specifically on their career and music making process and did not mention their personal lives.

My research into the target demographic of real music magazines found that their audience was largely male. This was mirrored in the number of males that featured on the cover. It is likely that this is due to Uses and Gratifications theory, as a male audience is more likely to identify with a male cover star. This meant that I chose to create a band that was predominantly males to use as my cover stars. The resulting four piece band had three male members and one female.

My Advanced Portfolio also required research into real media products. This time, I needed to research three products, digipaks, posters and music videos. I approached researching digipaks and posters in very similar ways. Considering my genre (R&B), I gathered multiple digipaks and posters and deconstructed them. I discovered that the conventional place for institutional information was either the top or bottom right of the back cover, with the barcode beside it. This ensured that my ancillary products looked as professional as possible.

However, the music video required much more detailed research, and having previously researched magazines and other products, I was aware of the need to deconstruct videos in order to understand their conventions.

Once I had selected an artist, I did extensive research into his other media products, including old music videos, album covers and promotional images to understand what image I had to portray in order to represent the artist, Justin Timberlake. This lead to the classic ‘suit and tie’ look that I dressed my performer in, as this is conventional of Timberlake. Not only is this an identifiable Timberlake look, this also was in keeping with the song itself, as ‘Mirrors’ was featured on the album ‘The 20/20 Experience’. The promotional images for this featured Timberlake in a classic black suit and tie. Therefore, my research into real media products ensured I was representing the artist correctly.

Therefore, in my development from Foundation to Advanced Portfolio, my research had extended to encompass more detail in my final products. Initially, I began researching just the product I was creating, but by the time I began my Advanced Portfolio, the knowledge I had of how useful product research was, meant I extended the research to cover not only the product, but the content that my product featured. This ensured I was not only producing a realistic product, but I was also representing the content correctly therefore increasing the final product’s likeness to a real media product.

Question 1b)

For my Advanced Portfolio, I created a music video for the song 'Mirrors' by Justin Timberlake. In many ways, my music video challenged the conventions of music videos in the R&B genre, as I created a narrative driven video and it was without sexualisation or objectification of the female characters.

Stereotypically, videos of the R&B genre are largely performance based. My music video for the song 'Mirrors' challenges these conventions through the inclusion of a narrative element. My video features four characters, each with a separate but similar narrative, focusing on how we see our insecurities in our reflection.

Another convention of the genre is that most women are sexualised or objectified. Female artists who are incredibly successful within the R&B genre such as Beyonce and Rihanna sexualise themselves in order to promote their music. Therefore, it was extremely unconventional for my video to feature two women who were not sexualised and to feature a higher number of males. However, this decision was made when considering Timberlake's target audience, the majority of which are females. Mulvey suggests that the sexualisation of women in video is the 'Male Gaze'. The camera is acting as a male's eye. In terms of Timberlake's song, a music video that sexualises women would not appeal to the largely female target audience. Also, as Timberlake's star image portrays him as someone who respects women. A music video that sexualised women would imply that he was a womanizer and therefore he would lose some of his appeal to females, and in turn, would cause him to lose fans. For this reason, straying from genre conventions in this way was effective for this particular artist.

However, my music video did follow certain conventions of the medium itself, as outlined by Andrew Goodwin. Goodwin claimed that a music video will either illustrate, amplify or oppose the meaning of the song. In the case of my music video, I chose to 'illustrate' the song's meaning, therefore 'bring it to life'. As the song's lyrics could be interpreted in a variety of ways, it was important to use the video to 'anchor meaning' so that the audience better understand the meaning of the song. My connection to the lyrics was seen most clearly in my use of mirrors, as the song itself is called 'Mirrors'. Lyrics such as "if you ever feel alone" connect to the narrative of the video. The four characters used in the video are involved in four separate narrative threads that are similar, but never cross. Each character is the only one involved in his or her narrative and this aims to indicate their loneliness. Moreover, a MS portrays 'The Outsider' writing the word 'lonely' on his mirror and 'The Heartbroken Guy' writes the word 'alone' on his.

Question 11)

Blurring the boundary between reality and representation is a key element of postmodern media and is seen consistently in postmodern media texts. Baudrillard's postmodern theory describes this blurring as a 'hyperreality'. This means that there is no longer a distinction between what is reality and representation, as the representation has become the reality. The theory is most literally depicted in The Matrix (1999, Dir. The Wachowskis), and this has led to it becoming a landmark text for postmodernists. The movie is set in a future world run by machines. These machines have enslaved humans, placing them in 'The Matrix', a neural-interactive simulation of the past so that they are unaware of this. This neural-interactive simulation is quite a literal example of hyperreality. This was clearly an intentional decision, as there are several references to Baudrillard's work. For example, Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation is the book which Neo uses as a secret stash. Also, Morpheus quotes Baudrillard's book 'America' with the phrase "welcome to the desert of the real".

More recently, the postmodern 'hyperreality' is presented quite differently to how it is presented in earlier postmodern texts. For example, This Is The End (2012, Dir. Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen) tells the story of the apocalypse in which the actors starring in the movie play themselves. The self aware comedy features six well known actors including Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jonah Hill, with a wide range of easily recognizable celebrity guest stars, all of which also play themselves. Essentially, the film is portraying a fictional version of reality. However, the 'reality' they are basing this 'fictional reality' on is in fact a representation of reality. This is an example of simulacra. 

The celebrity personas of the actors within the movie are often believed to be reality, and this is another way in which the boundary between representation and reality has been blurred. For example, Seth Rogen noted in an interview that audiences say he "plays himself in every movie", yet the audience don't know Seth Rogen, and base this opinion off of the representations they see him portray on screen. In This Is The End, the audience's expectations of Rogen are portrayed in his character, as the character is very similar to those he has been cast as in the past. Franco's sexuality has been questioned in the media, therefore they hinted at this in the movie through his infatuation with Rogen. This gave the movie a large amount of self-awareness, an incredibly postmodern characteristic.

This concept of fictional reality has become increasingly popular, causing the rise in success of TV Show Real Husbands of Hollywood. The show is a parody of the 'constructed reality' TV genre, most specifically Bravo's 'The Real Housewives' franchise. The parodic nature of the show is characteristic typical of postmodern media, as pointed out by Jameson. In order to parody 'The Real Housewives', Real Husbands of Hollywood is set in a fictional reality, in which the actors all play themselves, similarly to This Is The End. Kevin Hart is the show's protagonist, and many real life events are intertextally referenced in order to create the appearance of simulating reality. For example, in episode 1 'Easy Bake Kevin', a voiceover of Kevin Hart lists his achievements from the past year including starring in the film 'Think Like A Man' and hosting the 'MTV VMAs'. Both of which are real events that he was involved in. Therefore, Real Husbands of Hollywood is another example of how reality and representation are blurred in postmodern media.

Postmodern media can also blur the boundary between reality and representation by commenting on how much our reality has been shaped by representation. For example, in the TV show Community by Dan Harmon, the character Abed relates events that happen in the show back to media clichès For example, in Season 1, Episode 3, Abed claims he likes the school announcements as "they make every 10 minutes feel like the beginning of a TV show. The effect only lasts until someone says something they wouldn't say on TV, like how much their life is like TV. Then it's gone." This looks at the blurring of representation and reality in a different way to my previous examples, as it aims to comment on how postmodern media has caused audiences to confuse reality with representation.

Another example of how reality and representation have blurred is in the medium of video games. MMORPGs, also known as Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, blur the lines between reality and representation, as the games take place in a virtual world. One example of this type of game is World of Warcraft. Many players use the virtual world of Azeroth (where the game World of Warcraft takes place) as a substitute for real life, as they are able to gain human interaction and explore a world of continents and countries much like they could in real life. Therefore, the game world is a hyperreality, blurring the lines between reality and representation.

Another way in which representation and reality are blurred in World of Warcraft is through the idea of identity. Postmdoern theory suggests that identity is a performance, not inherent within ourselves. World of Warcraft conforms to such ideas because players take on the identities of their characters. Therefore, reality and representation are blurred as the characters people play as (the representation) are interpreted to be the person's identity (reality) by other players. Characters are regarded to be identity so strongly that certain races that players are free to play as are stereotyped and avoided in a way similar to real life racial discrimination.

Players respond in character to events within the game, as if the character is actually real. For example, the Corrupted Blood Plague was a landmark event within in the game, in which a debuff was carried out of a controlled gaming environment for higher level players and into the game world. This debuff was highly contagious and spread rapidly between players. People responded to the plague as if they were in a real world epidemic that would have real danger to their lives. In fact, though dying in the game is inconvenient, the player can restore the character back to life. The character is a representation of the real player. Therefore, World of Warcraft is yet another example of how postmodern texts blur the line between reality and representation, as players of the game treat representation as if it were reality.