Video Games

Video Game

• Is a media product with an interactive or ludic element
• Ludic: Latin for 'i play'
• They are more interactive than other media industries
• It is the broadest industry and has a lot of genres
• There is an assumption that videogames do not have anchorage and a deeper ideology
• There is more competition in videogames than other media products such as tournaments
• Substantially higher RRP (Recommended Retail Price), cost a lot more than other media products.
• Games are developed for specific hardware
• Videogames target a specific audience, a dedicated, niche, enthusiastic, core audience.
• Videogames are an extremely specialised industry
• Dichotomy: 2 things that contradict each other, binary/diametric opposition
• The videogame industry is nerdy and niche, however the industry is large and profitable

Fans

• Fandom is not the same as audience
• Fanfiction
• Merch
• lunch boxes
• hoodies
• t-shirt
• Gives us social interaction and makes life more interesting

• Pony's Creed Sisterhoof
• is a great example
• 'the death of the author'
• Clay Shirky
• 'End of audience' theory
• Audiences are no longer passive: they interact with media products in an increasingly complex variety of ways
• Suggests that the audience is the producer
• However this theory is very untrue, it is not entirely convincing, 
• Criticise this theory
• 
  

Steve Neale

• Cover art for Assassin's Creed is repeated over and over again because it sells, all the same genre

Assassins Creed III: Liberation

• Published by Ubisoft in 2012 for the PlayStation Vita
• With a subsequent HD re-release for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
• Trans-national creation as it was developed in Bulgaria, Canada and Italy
• Videogames are extremely expensive to make so they need to sell thousands
• Assassin Creed III: Liberation was too big to fail
• Has a clear and communicatcble story that has an understandable narrative
• The number of sales didn't live up to expectations
• A Sequel and a spin-off
• Wasn't a typical PSVita game
• A hand-held system means you feel more imersive in the system, however
• It was re-released on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 
• Consumers in the west tend to prefer home consoles instead of consoles on the go and that why the PSvita was more popular in Japan
• Assassins Creed's III sold 3 million copies, however Liberation sold 600,000
• Avatar is the technical term for a character you play as in the videogame
• The life bar, map and weapons selector is known as the HUD (heads up display)
• Ludo-narrative dissonance, the gameplay elements get in the way of the story elements
• Trailer:
• High-production value suggests it was made by a major company
• Main protagonist is a mixed race black woman
• Potentially this game is trying to aim towards a mixed race women (A unique selling point)
• Targeted a mass audience as if it was a movie
• Uses black fade
• Slow-motion
• There is no gameplay, parts of a videogame that is interactive
• Only cutscene footage
• The trailer is a link to Sony's distribution Service
• The trailer has a clear and easy identifiable narrative
• A story of a former slave who fights back, such as Django Unchained (Intertextuality)
• Over the top action and violence, makes it looks like the production value is high
• Set in Louisiana
• Offers the audience the pleasure/gratification of escapism
• Touches upon Slavery, can create a controversial topic
• Excellent example of digital convergence. videogame advertised on youtube that acts like a movie trailer 
• Didn't include the sci-fi elements of the game so that the producer could target a larger audience
• David Hesmondhalgh: The Media Industries
• Horizontal and Vertical integration
• Monopolisation
• Curran and Seaton: Profit and Power
• The media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the profit and power
• Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality
• More socially diverse patterns of ownership can create more varied and adventurous media productions

Death Stranding (2019)

• Death Stranding x Rick & Morty
• Unconventional 
• Subversive
• Mysterious
• Hermeneutic
• Leaves a lot of question
• 
  

• Livingstone and Hunt: Regulation


• BBFC
• Due to the digital technologies, the regulation of all media industries are widely ineffective
• The increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies and transformations in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation and risk.
• PEGI is the company that regulates videogames

• PEGI
• PEGI replaced ELSPA
• In 1982, a game called Custor's Revenege was uploaded to Atari. It involves raping a tied up native American woman.
• In 1992, a game called Night Trap was the first game that got BBFC certificate  
• The regulation of video games inefficient, age ratings would not work, so PEGI was used instead

Target audience is 14-21 males

Lots of dark colours

Capture the Zeitgeist

Could suggest why having a female lead in Liberation may have not gone too well

The Proairetic code of the hood promotes violence

Mise-en-scene of weapons 

Read Dead Redemption 2

• The higher the age rating, the younger the audience
• Completely illogical 

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Ubisoft:

• 90's 
• Indiana Jones The Last Crusade: The Action Game
• 00's
• Battle of Prince of Persia
• 10's
• Farcry 4

Super Mario Land

• Came out 1989 on the Gameboy

Plato system

• Started in 1960s
• touch-screen activated

How significant are economic factors in the magazine industry? Woman and Adbusters

How significant are economic factors in the videogame Industry? Assassin's Creed III: Liberation

• First commercialised in Japan
• Space Invaders was so popular that it lead to a shortage of 200 yen coins
• Entire blocks in building were rented out and filled with space invader arcade games
• America followed with Atari
• One such example being Centipede
• At this time, Nintendo existed
• UK
• ZX-Spectrum
• Famous for extremely low-budget games (bedroom coders)
• Early experimentations and generic fluidity

• 1980s videogame crash
• The game that supposedly ruined the game industry was ET
• Games started getting more dull and boring
• Nintendo
• Released a Famicom/NES, which was Nintendo's first console
• They gathered all the American videogames into one console
• Started issuing RPG, role-playing games, such as DragonQuest
• Super Mario Bros came out 1985
• The NES revived videogames
• This created a huge division between American games and Japanese Games
• Japan had more rpg games whilst the US had more of a open world game
• Sega vs Nintendo

• Super Street Fighter changed videogames because it was one of the first multiplayer games

Reverse Pyschology was used to get people to buy the first Playstation in UK

• In London they set up clubs for young adults to take part for Playstations

Digitally distributed: The process of having an online shop sell you games, like Steam

Radio

Radio

• PBS (Public broadcasting service
• paid through licensing fee
• REMIT (set of rules for radios)
• pluralistic ideological perspectives
• However new technology has allowed audience to pick and mix their own music now and not needing to listen to the radio. This links to David Gauntlett's theory of pick n mix.
• Digital technology has allowed audience to produce stuff
• It also maximises accessibility
• Thumbnailing images is a great way of categorising stuff 

Late-Night Women's hour

• Broadcast on BBC radio 4
• Spin-off of Women's hour
• It broadcasts once every month/ an infrequent broadcasting schedule
• Targets a female audience
• was presented by Lauren Laverne
• Usually 11pm on a Friday
• Target Audience is middle aged feminists
• Talk a lot about Feminists issues
• Lexis are well-spoken and articulate and are educated
• Apposition is when 2 things are placed side by side, similar to opposition except they're on the same side
• Targeting an extremely specific target audience
• Established 2015

Broadcasting is distributing a media product to a large audience easily
BBC was established in 1922

Women's hour originally was aimed for house work for women, this reinforced hegemonic norms, making it patronising

How have sociohistorical factors lead to a diversification of media output?

We have such a diversification of media now because of digital convergence

• Stuart Hall: Reception Theory
• Preferred
• Negotiated
• Oppositional
• Cannot relate to what the radio hosts are discussing about at all and find it boring 

Vaginas/pockets radio episode

• Female body odour 
• Then they talk about fashion which is much more hegemonically safer
• 
  

Clay Shirky
End of the audience theory

• 'we are making our own stuff and using them instead'
• Digital technology can now share (produce) music and videos and radio to others

Mini Mock Test: December

Liesbet Van-Zoonen argues that media language encodes how male and female characters act in media products. Explore how representations position the audience in Humans and Les Revenants

Key scenes

• Brothel in Humans
• Adele scene

Key theory 8: Feminist Theory/Male Gaze Theory

Lisbet Van Zoonen

The theory is that every media product is aimed to a heterosexual male audience

• Gender is constructed through discourse, conversations, media products
• And that this gender stereotype can change over the world depending where you are.

Van Zoonen believes that women are used in media products to attract heterosexual men

Aspirational image: an image that inspires you to look like that model in the image to gain a better life style.

Sexualisation: To make something sexual

Objectification: The change someone to the status of an object

Simone, Adele and Lena Scene

• Adele's response is not logical and is not typical of the genre
• Mid-shot of Adele collapsed against the door is symbolic of her misery and her lost of sanity, along with the high angle view makes her seem isolated, exposed, alone and weak
• Preferred reading of this scene was to make her seem happy again, but Les Revenants puts us in a confused position by making her not happy to see her.
• Terror intertextuality, the diajetic knocking sound, coupled with the shot of the handle moving is highly conventional of the horror genre.
• The scene demonstrates hybrid fluidity between the genres of horror and romance
• Brighter lights on Adele's side contrasts the low-key lighting on Simone's side of the door
• Non-diajetic music creates a stereotypical horror track, instruments such as a piano can be played very creepily. An arpeggiated song, symbolises loss 
• Big theme about this show is death, this means that this is final, and there is no return from death but Les revenants flips this, and for example Adele is upset because she believed she is being haunted by Simone
• We have a shot of Simone yelling "open the fucking door" with a counter shot of Adele screaming "go away'. This creates a barrier between the two and a diametric opposition.
• Extremely uncommercial scene
• Mise-en-scene of the mirror symbolises that Simone is a ghost and that he doesn't belong here
• Adele wears a white dress symbolises the fact that she is married
• Simone is wearing a suit which creates a binary opposition between Adele and Simone,  Simone is giving order and being stereotypically masculine, Adele is being stereotypically feminine and being scared and isolated, this links to Lisbet Van Zoonen's theory that genders are portrayed in a certain way across all media
• Low-key lighting in Adele's house is a proairetic code suggesting something bad is going to happen to her
• This could be an intertextual reference to the gothic genre
• lighting is artificial suggesting Adele carries herself now and doesn't want Simone in her life

How is Gender constructed when Leo enters the brothel?

• Leo is aggressive to other men on the street, even pointing, glaring; he is assertive and is getting stuff done
• Leo Gesticulates aggressively and assertively
• wears lots of layers of clothing making him look ruff and tuff
• military connotations with the guys wearing green shaded jackets
• Tracking shot positions us with Leo as he enters the brothel
• Leo tries to conceal a disgusted expression as he's quite upset to be in the brothel
• Leo is acting tuff, Niska is acting sexy; she is putting on an act so she can survive otherwise she'll be found out
• Hyper-real representation of a brothel
• The soundtrack makes it sound like an uninviting place to be, we are in the same position as Leo where we feel uncomfortable.  It is exploitative. Usually it would be the woman's right to choose to be a prostitute however all the prostitutes in the scene are synths, meaning they have no choice
• Tracking shot follows Leo around, it cuts to Niska which is a eye-line match shot
• Niska sexualisation, she is wearing a stereotypical sex worker costume
• During the hug they both breakout of their characters, Leo is no longer ruff and tuff
• Niska is very happy and is acting very human
• She proceeds to take out her anger at Leo by smacking him, but also continues what Leo claims that she is best as a prostitute for now
• This glare, smacking and close up shot of Niska emphasise the power she has over him; symbolically castrates/emasculates him
• women are numbered which objectifies them "yes i want number 7"
• Each prostitute is in their own chamber as if they are in a zoo, being treated like animals
• beard symbolises manliness in media
• £25 for 10 minutes can be considered
• Leo walks in a slouched way as if he has a purpose
• Backstreet which has symbolic connotations of crime, this creates binary opposition with the middle-class household that Anita is located

Sigmund Freud Madonna/Whore Complex

Woman Magazine

Audience is positioned to be uncomfortable

Allegory

Sociohistorical

Key Words

1. Representation
2. Stereotypical
3. Mise-en-scene
4. Hegemonic
5. Proairetic
6. Ideology
7. Hermeneutic
8. Symbolic
9. Cultivate
10. Polysemic
11. Subversive
12. Semiotics
13. Encoded
14. Binary/Diametric Opposition
15. Anchorage

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Liesbet Van-Zoonen argues that media language encodes how male and female characters act in media products. Explore how representations of genders position the audience in Humans(Stereotypical representation of women) and Les Revenants(the same as Humans)

To begin, Van Zoonen believes that women are used in any media products to appeal to the stereotypical hegemony of society that that media product is representing. In my overall opinion, I believe that representation of genders are portrayed stereotypically to the hegemonic norm of a patriarchal society before everyone was treated equally.

For Humans, it’s displays women in a very stereotypical way. Such example of this is Anita in Humans, she is being portrayed as a house-wife or maid, doing the dishes, laundry, cooking and always says to Laura Hawkins that she was built to serve. What makes this fit to the Zeitgeist of women in the 1960’s is the intertextuality of Humans, such as the Women magazine. We can associate Anita’s actions with how women were treated when society was more patriarchal then egalitarian. For the audience, they are positioned by making Anita the main character of the story. Examples that put her as the main character includes marketing such as posters, and her flashback in episode 1, season 1, when Leo loses her when she gets kidnapped. Meaning that she has a key importance to Leo who also is portrayed as important in the plot of Humans.  With the audience knowing that she is the main character means that the producer wants the preferred reading to be that the audience follows her story as she seems to be the spine of episode 1, season 1. With this we can consider that the representations of the female gender in Humans is that they are treated as a household object, as she is forced to do all the house cleaning and cooking etc. An example of this objectification can be when Laura Hawkins calls her ‘you’re just a stupid machine’ with Anita replying ‘yes Laura’. For the audience, they are meant to feel sympathy for Anita and also feel like they’re in the same position, to feel angered by how the Hawkins family treats her such as Matty saying that she is a slave. Concluding that for Lisbet Van Zoonen’s theory, this can be considered that females match the hegemony of society, however this is more directed towards the 1960’s when women were portrayed more as house-wives, this suggests that the show Humans is an allegory, with Van Zoonen stating that women are still portrayed to appeal to a male heterosexual audience. With Humans being Anita’s story, the preferred reading is for the audience to associate themselves to Anita the most as she is the one found on all the marketing for the TV show. And with how the Hawkins family treat her, makes the audience feel bitter towards anyone else who treats her badly.

Additionally, Les Revenants follows the same format of following the portrayal of men and women stereotypically. To begin, the best scene to describe how each gender is represented is the diametric opposition between Adele in her white wedding dress, low-key lighting and being indoors, with Simone in his black suit, dark lighting and being outside. One mid-shot of this scene is when Adele collaspes against the front door, this is symbolic of her misery and her lost of sanity after Simone had supposedly died ten years before the tv show is set. The mise-en-scene of the high angle view makes her seem isolated, exposed, alone and weak which follows the stereotypical hegemony of society in the 1960's. 

Furthermore, Humans also follows stereotypes of women but in another fashion as well as a house-wife. Theorist Sigmund Freud suggested that men, during his time, perceived women in one of two categories. He coined this the Madonna/ Whore complex, stating that women can either be a virgin, motherly, all caring, benevolent carer with great beauty or rather a whore, a character that craves intercourse, mostly prostitutes who want money. In this case Anita’s house-wife actions are contrasted by Niska, another synth in Humans. She also kidnapped and becomes a robotic prostitute. In episode 1 of season 1, Niska is portrayed as a whore according to Sigmund Freud. For one the mise-en-scene of the brothel when the character Leo enters it has high connotations to how women are represented. For one, Niska is wearing a stereotypical sex worker costume. Each prostitute is numbered, and not called by their real name, Leo says to the brothel owner that he’ll ‘have number 7’, which objectifies Niska and women as a whole yet again. Each prostitute is also in their own chamber as if they are in a zoo, being treated like animals, aka being treated as if they had lower status in society than men. Furthermore, the soundtrack of the brothel scene also makes it sound like an uninviting place to be in, the audience at this point follows Leo as he snakes around the brothel to find Niska, making us feel uncomfortable to be in the brothel. This follows Van Zoonen and Freud’s theories, that women are portrayed to be appealing to the male-gaze, or rather that media sexualises women; and that with the soundtrack making the audience feel uncomfortable with its exploitive nature demonstrates Freud’s belief that men portray the whore of the Madonna/Whore complex as scary and uncaringful, and the soundtrack follows this. This diametric opposition between Anita’s house-wife attitude and the objectification of synths in the brothel demonstrates Freud’s simple complex.

For the audience in this scene they follow Leo around the brothel could possibly show a rather atypical response but also stereotypical response on women. For atypical, Leo feels uncomfortable around the women, suggesting that he is fearful and unmanly, this of course is atypical to the stereotype that men are not afraid of anything and are brave, and with the audience being forced to follow him around the brothel, makes them feel uncomfortable to be around the women. This follows the stereotypical response that women that follow the whore part of the complex can be considered untrustworthy and scary. This can tie in to Stuart Hall’s reception theory, he states that when an audience is given a media product, they give three response to that product. For the producers preferred reading, he wants the audience to feel uncomfortable around the brothel, demonstrating an allegory that women should not be sexualised like this, following Van Zoonen’s theory but also tying in to how Freud’s theory demonstrates how wrong the whore is. For oppositional reading, this can be that women should be perceived to have a lower status in society and disgusting according heterosexual men, which Van Zoonen theory follows.

Les Revenants & Genre

Highly atypical show: Les Revenants

Genre

• Thriller/Horror
• Romance
• Action
• Supernatural
• Drama-
• Avant-Garde
• Zombie
• French?
• Unconventional/atypical/subversive

Example of cult TV

• Fans who are devoted to a particular TV show

• Intertextuality
• Setting in the low French-Alps
• Architecture is French-esque
• Explicit amounts of blood
• Produced by a French channel (Canal)
• Treatment of genders is more relaxed than in the UK
• Stereotypically looks of French people

If a TV show is aimed to multiple audiences, it's known as a double mode of address

For example: younger and older generations for Les Revenants

Facts

• Released 26th November 2012 on Canal+
• Released in the United Kingdom on the 9th June 2013, on Channel 4
• 2 series, 8 episodes each
• Based on the French film 'They Came Back' in 2004
• Les Revenants (the movie) was directed by Robin Campillo
• Created by Fabric Gobert
• The show has a significant majority of white people suggesting it presents the ethnic diversity of France, this shows the target audience
• George Gerbner argued that if a certain group of people was left out of a media product is called symbolic annihilation 
• Mogwai- Band
• Unconventional rock band
• Extremely normal looking, not wearing anything special (Atypical)
• No vocalist
• Genre is post-rock and has a niche/cult audience
• Can ensure the show that has a pre-sold audience
• The soundtrack is Atypical/ they composed the entire soundtrack for Les revenants
• 
  

"In the 21st century, it is essential for TV shows to offer their audiences multiple meanings" - evaluate this claim with reference to Les revenants/The Returned

1. Representation can be used by the producer to manipulate the audiences ideology
2. This allows the producer to construct a perfect reality that may be reflected in the real world
3. This makes Les revenants highly polysemic as people's choices may not want to follow the producer's ideology

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Promotional images for advertising

• Camille is stereotypically attractive
• Ginger suggests rebel
• Dress older then she is, suggesting she's a mature teenager
• She does display being grumpy
• makeup suggests she's tired and ill
• Is a highly subversive atypical representation of a teenage girl
• This suggests that the audience has high expectations

• Claire has nice hair, well dressed
• She has a very understated glamour
• Atypical representation of a middle-aged woman
• Stereotypically middle class

Promotional image

• 
• Set in a valley in the French Alps, targets a French audience because it's something they would be familiar with
• Black Rose is symbolic of Mourning which is a binary opposition between the wedding and the funeral
• Binary opposition between life and death
• Canal + co-produced I, Daniel Blake
• Caption "The past has decided to resurface" suggests its edgy
• Wedding dress has connotations for it being a romance genre
• Specific stereotypical French people were chosen to show that this is a French show
• Stuart Hall suggests that Les Revenants is a show that is supposed to have negotiated reading
• The text is split in half which could be referring to binary opposition that Simone and Adele are divided and broken
• The show is marketed differently in different nations because different nationalities stereotypically have different tastes
• This is because of Cultivation theory by George Gerbner, that French people experience more edgy, sexual TV shows than other nationalities
• 
  

• The characters in Les Revenants are stereotypically attractive to a French Audience

Trailer

• The trailer uses a rapid fire montage and cross-cutting, this is very conventional for a trailer
• Trailer is exciting, has a range of characters, same footage but done by a different director instead of Robin Campillo
• the distributors had taken a different role with the footage
• Has english subtitles and english texts, meaning its aimed towards an english audience
• Is exciting and fast-paced
• close-up of pictures covered in blood suggests horror
• Bus crash also suggests horror or action (very dramatic)
• Atypical horror cult show, just like Mogwai
• Also demonstrates a romance, horror, thriller, action hybrid genre
• a philosophical cult drama
• This is done to get a wider audience
• the distributors are clearly targeting a mainstream audience
• Hard-sell show

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Camille and Lena

• Lack of non-diegetic sound anchors the audience into a tense and deliberately uncomfortable scene, appealing to a niche audience or fans of horror and mystery
• Knocking on wall in hermeneutic codes, indicating a dramatic and mysterious event
• Deliberately confusing and challenging

Simone, Adele and Lena Scene

• Adele's response is not logical and is not typical of the genre
• Mid-shot of Adele collapsed against the door is symbolic of her misery and her lost of sanity, along with the high angle view makes her seem isolated, exposed, alone and weak
• Preferred reading of this scene was to make her seem happy again, but Les Revenants puts us in a confused position by making her not happy to see her.
• Terror intertextuality, the diajetic knocking sound, coupled with the shot of the handle moving is highly conventional of the horror genre.
• The scene demonstrates hybrid fluidity between the genres of horror and romance
• Brighter lights on Adele's side contrasts the low-key lighting on Simone's side of the door
• Non-diajetic music creates a stereotypical horror track, instruments such as a piano can be played very creepily. An arpeggiated song, symbolises loss 
• Big theme about this show is death, this means that this is final, and there is no return from death but Les revenants flips this, and for example Adele is upset because she believed she is being haunted by Simone
• We have a shot of Simone yelling "open the fucking door" with a counter shot of Adele screaming "go away'. This creates a barrier between the two and a diametric opposition.
• Extremely uncommercial scene
• Mise-en-scene of the mirror symbolises that Simone is a ghost and that he doesn't belong here
• Adele wears a white dress symbolises the fact that she is married
• Simone is wearing a suit which creates a binary opposition between Adele and Simone,  Simone is giving order and being stereotypically masculine, Adele is being stereotypically feminine and being scared and isolated, this links to Lisbet Van Zoonen's theory that genders are portrayed in a certain way across all media
• Low-key lighting in Adele's house is a proairetic code suggesting something bad is going to happen to her
• This could be an intertextual reference to the gothic genre
• lighting is artificial suggesting Adele carries herself now and doesn't want Simone in her life
• Long shot of Lena suggests how lonely she is and how vulnerable she is
• Middle-class characters for a middle-class audience
• Every character in the show is white, suggesting a white middle-class target audience
• Slow paced editing but increases as the music gets more intense

Monsieur/Madame Costa

• Mise-en-scene or the ropes that bond her make her seem vulnerable, the fact that the audience is place in another room to her on the other side of the fire on the other side of the door frame
• Completely atypical response
• Soundtrack doesn't fit the scene, it is a contrapuntal sound
• There is a mundane/boring response to the fire, Mr Costa thinks he's gone mad, Mrs Costa is confused by the fire
• Classy old fashioned house suggests middle-class elder persons house

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Steve Neale wrote about Genre such as conventions to give movies and TV shows certain generic classification 

Genre can sometimes be ineffective in categorising media if it involves completely different media products that follows the same genre partially

Genre limits creativity 

1. Twin Peaks
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3. The Wire
4. Doctor Who

The Walking Dead

Television Industry

All media industries are specialised in their own way

Digital media has completely changed the way in which the television industry works

Television

1. Television is a global industry
2. Television is a commercial industry
3. Public service broadcasting
4. Private television channels
5. Global private television channels
6. During the early days, TV was seen as manipulative, spreading propaganda and makes you stupid

Broadcast

Piece of media that spreads a wide net across a various amount of audiences

Netflix

• The end of the fucking world is a perfect example of narrowcasting
• It appeals to edgy, moody teenagers
• Stranger Things
• Big Mouth

Youtube

• Prosumer: when the audience makes the content

Digital convergence

• The coming together of different industries
• This makes the media industry impossible to regulate

BBC

• British Broadcasting cooperation
• Public service broadcaster
• threatened by online streaming platforms as they are taking away huge amount of viewers
• the TV industry is almost impossible to regulate, all thanks to online streaming platforms
• Only 400 tv sets were in the UK when the BBC aired it's first HD programme
• The BBC creed was to inform, educate and entertain

• Soap Opera: created and was funded by soap companies

Humans is aired on Channel 4

• Distribution: how a product is 'given' to the consumers
• Circulation: how big the share  is
• Marketing: how it is sold

• Persona Synthetics Advert
• Ominous connotations of the low angle shot of synth leading child up the stairs, a hermeneutic code further reinforced by the sparse narrative
• Highly polysemic advert: synth leading boy upstairs could either be construed as threatening or could emphasise the synth's maternal nature
• Boy walking downstairs, followed by eye-line match to mother, followed by the unexpected conclusion of the synth instead leading the boy upstairs perfectly demonstrates the themes of the TV show
• Todorov: use of disequilibrium
• Utilisation of direct mode of address is included to deliberately make the audience feel uncomfortable.
• Advert lacks any form of anchorage, taking the form of a consumer product advertisement as opposed to a trailer for a sci-fi TV show. Highly subversive
• Elements of post-modernism. Lacks meaning, and is selling something that does not actually exist. A hyperreal advertisement
• Synth is expressionless and appears to lack humanity, Takes on the role of a housewife or maid. 
• Additionally plays the role of the doll

Theorists summary

1.  Roland Barthes- Semiotics
1.  Every media product has a hidden meaning
2.  Tzvetan Todorov- Narratology
1. Every story has a beginning that is good, a period of mass chaos, and an end with partial mending good
3.  Steve Neale- Genre Theory
1. States that all media products have a type of story and that they change over time
2. This creates combined genres, aka sub-genres
4.  Claude Levi-Strauss- Structuralism
1. Believes that all media products create two opposite ideas that are used to show difference one another
5.  Jean Baudrillard- Postmodernism
1.  claims that lifestyle's boundaries between what is real and what is not is no longer boundary
6.  Stuart Hall- Representation
1.  He says that overtime, people have been grouped together to make life easier for creators to create media products to target audience
7.  David Gauntlett- Identity
1.  Media products help people to create people their own personality and character, a pick and mix theory
8.  Liesbet van Zoonen- Feminism
1. Says that women in every media product are created to be sexy for boys to enoy
9.  bell hooks- Feminist
1. Claims that feminism is not just for women but for everyone and is used to end the powerful man lifestyle and the 'wanting to be powerful'  women.
10.  Judith Butler- Gender Performativity
1.  Claims that boy's and girl's character are created by how they walk, talk, dress etc
11.  Paul Gilroy- Ethnicity and Postcolonial
1.  Paul says that the idea of peoples beliefs on certain people were created after the settling and claiming of land from the empire period such as the British Empire
12.  Curran & Seaton- Power and Media industries
1.  Overtime the movies are being controlled by a smaller number of companies who love money, such as Disney
2.  This creates a lack of creativity, quality and variety in media products
13.  Sonia Livingstone & Peter Lunt- Regulation
1. Rules and restrictions that issued to every movie, stating how old you should be to watch this movie
14.  David Hesmondhalgh- Cultural Industries
1.  When companies by other companies, either on the same level of that company or smaller companies
15.  Albert Bandura- Media Effects
1.  Claims that movies, videogames and more have a great effect on people, changing their personality
16.  George Gerbner- Cultivation
1. The idea that long exposure to TV boosts the beliefs set on certain people groups
17.  Stuart Hall- Reception
1. When we are given a book, movie, tv show, videogame and more, we are expected to view it in a certain way, understand what it means but may disagree, argue against what the thing is showing or completely misunderstand what its supposed to show.
2. Negotiation
18.  Henry Jenkins- Fandom
1. Media fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully intended by the media producers (textual poaching)
19. Clay Shirky- End of Audience
1. no such thing as audience anymore, we are all producers
2. Media consumers have become producers who 'speak back to' the media in various ways, creating and sharing 

Sci-Fi genre and sociohistorical context (Humans)

Humans

• Stereotypical and conventional sci-fi TV show
• Parallel/alternate universe, contemporary setting
• Subversive stereotype, humans have emotions towards the robots
• The show is deliberately uncomfortable, makes robots feel human emotions
• Displays relationships between men and women in a contemporary society
• Involvement of technology in families, relationships between parents and children
• Death and loss
• Corporations taking over
• Philosophically racist, treating synths as 'others' as their not humans
• Immigration
• Sexualisation of women(synth prostitute/slave/rape victim)
• Sexual exploitation
• Modern Slavery
• Capitalism and the nuclear family (mum, dad and 2 kids)
• Racism
• Extensive use of flashbacks makes audience confused
• Has a complex narrative
• Being a tv show destroys the narratology of the story, episode 1 ends at a disequilibrium instead of partial restoration to the equilibrium
• Character arc- when we follow the story of a particular character
• Anita is symbolically stealing Laura's motherly chores and lifestyle

DIAMETRIC OPPOSITION = BINARY OPPOSITION

• Binary oppositions are extremely useful when evaluating meanings within media
• They're essential for a producer of a media product to construct an ideology
• 
  

• Negotiated Reading

What role do female synths take in Humans?

• Housewife work
• Sex workers
• Carers
• Cook
• Manual Labour
• Mother
• Butler
• Friend
• Slave
• Rebel

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Scene Analysis

• Target audience: middle class, 30 plus
• Similar to purchasing a new phone, computer, etc
• Consumerist society

• Post-modernism
• 
  
• Sociohistorical
• matters related with history and society
• Allegory
• A metaphor that makes a broader comment on society/ Something that creates a deeper meaning
• Zeitgeist
• A story/media production that presents the spirit of the time it is set in (e.g Stranger Things)

Ending montage:

• Semiotics- Robot takes child is hermeneutic and proairetic with the low-key lighting and night time setting
• Narratology- partial restoration equilibrium disrupted by being left on cliff hanger
• Structuralism- the sleeping child gold lighting scene that is cut to harsh red lighting prostitution scene makes it upsetting 
• Representation- man came into brothel is shown to be lower class, to show stereotypical person to use a prostitute, stereotypically and hegemonicly unattractive
• Identity- People identify with Anita as they may feel stuck with a never-ending negative job
• Feminist- mise-en-scene protestuitioin scene dress code
• Regulation- nudity not allowed in the rated 15 tv show
• Feminist- stereotypical east asian slave that is treated very differently to the white characters
• Power in media industry- Contrasting happy advert with rape scene shows power and profit from companies
• Cultivation- reinforces hegemonic stand of beauty
• Reception- depending on background you can relate to this scene
• Matty calls her younger brother a 'nobcock' which subverts the stereotype of women's gentle speech

Anita gets kidnapped

• Its a polysemic scene and Humans is a polysemic media product
• preferred reading: intense sympathy for synths
• oppositional reading: they're only robots
• Provides audiences with a range of topics to discuss and potentially disagree on
• Audiences can take pleasure through the use of hermeneutic codes, pondering the mystery of the TV show
• Emotionally manipulative: audiences can take pleasure at the use of extreme drama
• Displays conventions of the horror genre, in particular the sound of the breaking twig. Tension is built up then built down
• Close up shot of hand dragging the body
• Frustration at the stupidity of the gang of synths and Leo. Audiences may question his intelligence and dislike him as a result.
• Forshadowing of Leo's status as Human: a proairetic code
• Frequent encoding of hermeneutic codes. Who are they? What are they doing? What is a battery?
• Confusing establishing shot of tents, POV shot, cutting to Leo in the woods. Audiences may feel frustrated and turn off at this early point
• Use of sound: dramatic, synthesised, sci-fi music
• Setting: stereotypically British forest, allowing audiences to take pleasure at a familiar site
• Sexual gratification: taking pleasure at seeing attractive characters

America love watching British tv shows like downtown abbey

How is Gender constructed when Leo enters the brothel?

• Leo is aggressive to other men on the street, even pointing, glaring; he is assertive and is getting stuff done
• Leo Gesticulates aggressively and assertively
• wears lots of layers of clothing making him look ruff and tuff
• military connotations with the guys wearing green shaded jackets
• Tracking shot positions us with Leo as he enters the brothel
• Leo tries to conceal a disgusted expression as he's quite upset to be in the brothel
• Leo is acting tuff, Niska is acting sexy; she is putting on an act so she can survive otherwise she'll be found out
• Hyper-real representation of a brothel
• The soundtrack makes it sound like an uninviting place to be, we are in the same position as Leo where we feel uncomfortable.  It is exploitative. Usually it would be the woman's right to choose to be a prostitute however all the prostitutes in the scene are synths, meaning they have no choice
• Tracking shot follows Leo around, it cuts to Niska which is a eye-line match shot
• Niska sexualisation, she is wearing a stereotypical sex worker costume
• During the hug they both breakout of their characters, Leo is no longer ruff and tuff
• Niska is very happy and is acting very human
• She proceeds to take out her anger at Leo by smacking him, but also continues what Leo claims that she is best as a prostitute for now
• This glare, smacking and close up shot of Niska emphasise the power she has over him; symbolically castrates/emasculates him
• women are numbered which objectifies them "yes i want number 7"
• Each prostitute is in their own chamber as if they are in a zoo, being treated like animals
• beard symbolises manliness in media
• £25 for 10 minutes can be considered
• Leo walks in a slouched way as if he has a purpose
• Backstreet which has symbolic connotations of crime, this creates binary opposition with the middle-class household that Anita is located

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Historical Representations of Automata

• Automata: moving mechanical devices made in imitation of a human being
• Art that questions the similarities between robots and humans
• Perfection is subjective
• Perfection can also be constructive

Representation of Women & The Representation of Cyborgs

• Representation is the way something is presenting again by the producer
• Every media product does not show reality, we are seeing representation of reality, including nature documentaries and news
• The purpose of representation is to create/present the producer's ideology
• This is so the producer can present his ideology to an audience
• This is so the producer can manipulate the audience
• This Cultivates the audience in this ideological perspective

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Why are attractive women used to sell consumer products?

• An association is being made between a product and a stereotypically attractive women
• In each case this is a good example of fetishism, for Liesbet Van Zoonen's male gaze 
• In Humans Anita is shown to be sexually attractive to sell the product better, this is a good example of commodity Fetishism
• Sexual Fetishism
• The fact that Anita is East Asian with different colour of the skin makes her 'exotic' meaning ethnicity can also be a fetishism
• Sexual and Commodity fetishism are very similar
• 
  

George Gerbner: Cultivation

Judith Butler: Theories of gender performativity 

Gender Performance: Is the way we act, talk, walk, move etc

Gender Performativity: How we affect other people

1. Identity is a performance and it is constructed through a series of acts and 'expressions' that we perform every day
2. while there are biological differences dictated by sex, our gender is defined through a series of acts. These may include the ways we walk, talk, dress and so on.
3. Therefore, there is no gender identity behind these expressions of gender
4. Gender performativity is not a singular act, but repetition and a ritual. It is outlined and reinforced through dominant patriarchal ideologies

Jean Baudrillard

He states that the representation are more important than the reality
So a drawing of a tree is more important than an actual tree

Hyperreality
When representation is more important than the thing it represents.

That the hyperreal is real and the real is fake

• Pornography is a hyperreal representation of sex
• In humans, the brothel scene, the women are presented as perfect prostitutes because they do whatever they're told, sexual objectification

Simulacra
Representation of something that doesn't truly exist

1. The Synths look identical to humans: perfect representation of Humanity. Yet better than humans. Niska decides to not switch off her pain chip to deliberately force herself to suffer
2. The synths are more pretty than people, they chose more stereotypical people to play the roles of the synth

To what extent can it be argued that Humans is a post-modernism media product?

• I shall argue that fundamentally postmodern media product, and in particular is an excellent exploration of the concepts of hyperreality and simulacrum
• one particularly convincing example of hyperreality occurs during the breakfast scene
• The large amount of food being served at breakfast
• MES: arrangement of toast, "the jam is in a real thing!".
• Sophie's excitement can be explained by the fact that she clearly recognises such scenes from films and TV shows. Her excitement indicates that this is different from how breakfast usually is in the Hawkins household.
• Joe: "This is what breakfast is supposed to be like"
• Clearly happy and excited, excitement at a hyperreal construction, a fantasy. The breakfast resembles a hotel breakfast, or a breakfast in a film or TV show
• Characters within a TV show discussing the nature of reality is a highly hyperreal, postmodern aspect.
• Anita's laughter is also an example of a hyperreal construction. Joe tells an appalling pun that normally would be met with groans. 
• When prompted, Anita reacts with a fake, empty and repetative and creepy laugh. 
• By doing what she is told in an exact way, Anita reinforces the patriarchal hegemony wielded byJoe, and inflates his ego. Disturbingly, this theme is returned to later on in the series when Joe essentially demands sex off Anita, presentingt her with the 18+ card.
• Even more confusingly, Anita is not even Anita, but a brainwashed synth called Mia. She is a copy of a copy of a copy.
• Anita is a hyperreal construction of hegemonic female attractiveness. More hegemonically attractive than Laura, and forms a powerful diametric opposition. 
• While Laura has skin blemishes, ginger hair, a slightly larger frame constructs her as less hegemonically attractive. For Laura, Anita is a hyperreal version of herself, stealing her life. Not only does Anita read stories to Sophie and do the ironing, she also constructs a fabulous, hyperreal breakfast

• Post-modernism is impossible to define. It is a theory that hates every other theory including itself, suggesting that the world we live in is meaningless
• Deadpool is an excellent example of a post-modern film
• it breaks the rules of media by breaking the 4th wall
• Post-modernism is the act of breaking the rules of the hegemonic norm, a subversive act.
• It is deliberately breaking the rules

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Sigmund Freud's Madonna/Whore complex

Believes that women according to males are divided into 2 separate groups

The Madonna: A virtuous perfect women who is a virgin and a all loving mother

The Whore: A disgraceful chaotic women who craves sex