Sims part 1

 Language / Gameplay analysis

Watch The Sims: FreePlay trailer and answer the following questions:

1) What elements of gameplay are shown?

3rd person camera control

creativity/make the game your own

able to create your own avatar

able to make friendships and form relationships.

2) What audience is the trailer targeting?

psychographics: Aspirer, player has control over the world, events and story.

12+ age rating as there are references to alcohol consumption, sexual themes and other adult content.

3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer?

being in control

personal relationships towards characters and finding their personal identities represented

Diversion from the real world to an idealistic world/

1) How is the game constructed?

3rd person camera

personal avatar that you create the story for

sandbox/life simulation game

2) What audience is this game targeting?

psychographic: aspirers

age: older teenagers/young adults

3) What audience pleasures does the game provide?

main gratification of diversion provides entertainment. Other gratifications include: control, personal identity and relationships.

4) How does the game encourage in-app purchases?

The game is based on a freemium model which is where the base of the game is free, but players need to pay for further content in expansion packs, time locked or level locked items/events.

Audience

1) What critics reviews are included in the game information section?

• "5STARS ...The Sims FreePlay is everything you could ever want a freemium Sims game to be.” (Gamezebo)
• “10/10 …one of the most addictive and highly polished games available and there’s no excuse for anyone to not download it; especially since it is free to play (the clue’s in the title).” (God is a Geek)
  “...plenty of hours of fun... at an excellent, non-existent, price.” (148Apps)

2) What do the reviews suggest regarding the audience pleasures of The Sims FreePlay?

Life simulation where the player has a large amount of control

personalisation of character and the world around them.

Participatory culture

1) What did The Sims designer Will Wright describe the game as?

 Akin to ‘a train set or a doll’s house where each person comes to it with their own interest and picks their own goals’ (Wright 1999).

2) Why was development company Maxis initially not interested in The Sims?

The dollhouse pitch wasn't favoured.

There was a culture at the time that gaming was not for girls and The Sims was too feminine to succeed in the market.

3) What is ‘modding’?

players manipulate the games code so they can create their own gamemodes/mechanics

4) How does ‘modding’ link to Henry Jenkins’ idea of ‘textual poaching’?

fans can create their own content based off the source material and share it.

5) Look specifically at p136. Note down key quotes from Jenkins, Pearce and Wright on this page.

‘The original Sims series has the most vibrant emergent fan culture of a single-player game in history’.

‘there were already more than fifty fan Web sites dedicated to The Sims. Today, there are thousands’.

‘We were probably responsible for the first million or so units sold but it was the community which really brought it to the next level’ (ibid). Whereas the game itself gave consumers a base neighborhood, wardrobe and furniture sets to play with, the players themselves turned producers (or produsers, to cite Axel Bruns’.

6) What examples of intertextuality are discussed in relation to The Sims? (Look for “replicating works from popular culture”)

Star Trek, Star Wars, The X-files and Japanese manga.

7) What is ‘transmedia storytelling’ and how does The Sims allow players to create it?

code of an official product can be spread over media platforms in both digital and analogue form.

9) Why have conflicts sometimes developed within The Sims online communities?

some players disagree with the concept of modding whilst some are for it.

10) What does the writer suggest The Sims will be remembered for?

"The collaborative communities that continue to exist around the game and its descendants."

Read this Henry Jenkins interview with James Paul Gee, writer of Woman as Gamers: The Sims and 21st Century Learning (2010).

1) How is ‘modding’ used in The Sims?

create challenges and game play that is simultaneously in the game world, in the real world

2) Why does James Paul Gee see The Sims as an important game?

It takes people beyond gaming.

3) What does the designer of The Sims, Will Wright, want players to do with the game?

think like designers, create and express creativity.

4) Do you agree with the view that The Sims is not a game – but something else entirely?

5) How do you see the future of gaming? Do you agree with James Paul Gee that all games in the future will have the flexibility and interactivity of The Sims?

Learner Response: OSP Assessment

1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

Mark: 23/34 

Grade: C

A really good effort, Hannah, you should be proud of what you have achieved in this assessment. Q1: A really strong analysis of the unseen advert and a good abiliyu

2) Read the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Identify three specific aspects from Figure 1 (the Google Home advert) that you could have mentioned in your answer (e.g. selection of image, framing and focus, colour, text etc.)

3) Now use the mark scheme to identify three potential points that you could have made in your essay for Question 2 (Hesmondhalgh - narrow range of values and ideologies).

4) Use your exam response, the mark scheme and any other resources you wish to use to write a detailed essay plan for Question 2. Make sure you are planning at least four well-developed paragraphs in addition to an introduction and conclusion.

5) Finally, identify three key areas you plan to revise from the OSP unit (CSP aspects or theories) having looked at your feedback from this assessment.

If you do not finish your learner response in the lesson your work is returned, this needs to be completed at home by your next exam lesson.

Video Games: Further Feminist Theory

 1) What definitions are offered by the factsheet for ‘feminism ‘and ‘patriarchy’?

Feminism is a movement which aims for women to be treated as equal to men socially, economically, and politically.

 patriarchy (male dominance in society). Feminists see the patriarchy as a limitation to women receiving the same treatment and benefits as their male counterparts.

2) Why did bell hooks publish her 1984 book ‘Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center’?

She had identified a lack of diversity within the feminist movement, and argued that these diverse voices had been marginalised, being put outside the main body of feminism. 

3) What aspects of feminism and oppression are the focus for a lot of bell hooks’s work?

Women in lower class and poor groups, particularly those that are non-white, would not have defined women’s liberation as women gaining social equality with men since they are continually reminded in their everyday lives that all women do not share a common social status.” 

Feminism’s goal to make all women equal to men is flawed; not all men are equal to men as a result of oppression, sexuality, ethnicity. 

She argues that male involvement within the equality movement was important, encouraging men to do their part. 

4) What is intersectionality and what does hooks argue regarding this?

5) What did Liesbet van Zoonen conclude regarding the relationship between gender roles and the mass media?

6) Liesbet van Zoonen sees gender as socially constructed. What does this mean and which other media theorist we have studied does this link to?

7) How do feminists view women’s lifestyle magazines in different ways? Which view do you agree with?

8) In looking at the history of the colours pink and blue, van Zoonen suggests ideas gender ideas can evolve over time. Which other media theorist we have studied argues this and do you agree that gender roles are in a process of constant change? Can you suggest examples to support your view?

9) What are the five aspects van Zoonen suggests are significant in determining the influence of the media?

10) What other media theorist can be linked to van Zoonen’s readings of the media?

11) Van Zoonen discusses ‘transmission models of communication’. She suggests women are oppressed by the dominant culture and therefore take in representations that do not reflect their view of the world. What other theory and idea (that we have studied recently) can this be linked to?

12) Finally, van Zoonen has built on the work of bell hooks by exploring power and feminism. She suggests that power is not a binary male/female issue but reflects the “multiplicity of relations of subordination”. How does this link to bell hooks views on feminism and intersectionality?

The Voice Case Study

 Language and textual analysis

Homepage

Go to the Voice homepage and answer the following:

1) What news website key conventions can you find on the Voice homepage?

Headlines, pictures, advertisements, subcategories, social media links.

2) How does the page design differ from Teen Vogue?

3) What are some of the items in the top menu bar and what does this tell you about the content, values and ideologies of the Voice?

4) Look at the news stories on the Voice homepage. Pick two stories and explain why they might appeal to the Voice's target audience. 

5) How is narrative used to encourage audience engagement with the Voice? Apply narrative theories (e.g. Todorov equilibrium or Barthes’ enigma codes) and make specific reference to stories on the homepage and how they encourage audiences to click through to them.

Lifestyle section

Now analyse the Lifestyle section of the Voice and answer the following:

1) What are the items in the sub-menu bar for the Lifestyle section and what does this suggest about the Voice audience?

2) What are the main stories in the Lifestyle section currently?

3) How does the Lifestyle section of the Voice differ from Teen Vogue?

4) Do the sections and stories in the Voice Lifestyle section challenge or reinforce black stereotypes in British media?

5) Choose two stories featured in the Lifestyle section – how do they reflect the values and ideologies of the Voice?

Feature focus

1) Read this Voice opinion piece on black representation in the tech industry. How does this piece reflect the values and ideologies of The Voice?

2) Read this feature on Michaela Coel supporting Oxfam's Second Hand campaign. Why might this feature appeal to readers of The Voice?

3) Read this Voice news story on Grenfell tower and Doreen Lawrence. How might this story reflect the Voice’s values and ideologies? What do the comments below suggest about how readers responded to the article? Can you link this to Gilroy’s work on the ‘Black Atlantic’ identity?

Audience

1) Who do you think is the target audience for the Voice website? Consider demographics and psychographics.

2) What audience pleasures are provided by the Voice website? Apply media theory here such as Blumler and Katz (Uses & Gratifications).

3) Give examples of sections or content from the website that tells you this is aimed at a specialised or niche audience.

4) Studying the themes of politics, history and racism that feature in some of the Voice’s content, why might this resonate with the Voice’s British target audience?

5) Can you find any examples of content on the Voice website created or driven by the audience or citizen journalism? How does this reflect Clay Shirky’s work on the ‘end of audience’ and the era of ‘mass amateurisation’?

Representations

1) How is the audience positioned to respond to representations in the Voice website?

2) Are representations in the Voice an example of Gilroy’s concept of “double consciousness” NOT applying?

3) What kind of black British identity is promoted on the Voice website? Can you find any examples of Gilroy’s “liquidity of culture” or “unruly multiculturalism” here?

4) Applying Stuart Hall’s constructivist approach to representations, how might different audiences interpret the representations of black Britons in the Voice?

5) Do you notice any other interesting representations in the Voice website? For example, representations or people, places or groups (e.g. gender, age, Britishness, other countries etc.)

Industries

1) Read this Guardian report on the death of the original founder of the Voice. What does this tell you about the original values and ideologies behind the Voice brand? 

2) Read this history of the Voice’s rivals and the struggles the Voice faced back in 2001. What issues raised in the article are still relevant today? 

3) The Voice is now published by GV Media Group, a subsidiary of the Jamaican Gleaner company. What other media brands do the Gleaner company own and why might they be interested in owning the Voice? You'll need to research this using Google/Wikipedia or look at this Guardian article when Gleaner first acquired The Voice.

4) How does the Voice website make money?

5) What adverts or promotions can you find on the Voice website? Are the adverts based on the user’s ‘cookies’ or fixed adverts? What do these adverts tell you about the level of technology and sophistication of the Voice’s website?

6) Is there an element of public service to the Voice’s role in British media or is it simply a vehicle to make profit?

7) What examples of technological convergence can you find on the Voice website – e.g. video or audio content?

8) How has the growth of digital distribution through the internet changed the potential for niche products like the Voice?

9) Analyse The Voice’s Twitter feed. How does this contrast with other Twitter feeds you have studied (such as Teen Vogue)? Are there examples of ‘clickbait’ or does the Voice have a different feel?

10) Study a selection of videos from The Voice’s YouTubechannel. How does this content differ from Teen Vogue? What are the production values of their video content?

Videogames: Introduction - Women in videogames

 part 1: Medium article - Is Female Representation in Video Games Finally Changing?

1) How have women traditionally been represented in videogames?

Damsels in distress.

2) What percentage of the video game audience is female?

42%

3) What recent games have signalled a change in the industry and what qualities do the female protagonists offer?

Tomb Raider, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, The Walking Dead series. These women are strong, independent, wilful and compassionate.

4) Do you agree with the idea that audiences reject media products if they feel they are misrepresented within them?

I agree with this as the female audience of a game decreases significantly when females are misrepresented in them compared to the female audience of a game when females are properly represented.

5) What does the writer suggest has changed regarding recent versions of Lara Croft and who does she credit for this development?

Rhianna Pratchett: create a protagonist who players could identify with.  “the essence of the new Lara Croft became the struggle she felt within herself”

Part 2: Tropes vs Women in Video Games – further analysis

Title of video: Women are too hard to animate.

100 word summary: The video discusses the idea that some game producers say that creating female characters in video games is just too much work. This started the hashtag #womenaretoohardtooanimate and a discussion into how long it took for mainstream video games such as Fifa to introduce  women to the game. It also talks about how when women are featured in video games, they're often hyper-sexualised in their appearance and actions; they also rarely play an important role in the game and are side lined to being the sidekick. They are portrayed as a helper who has restricted movement and importance in the game.

Part 3: Anita Sarkeesian Gamespot interview

1) What reaction did Anita Sarkeesian receive when she published her videos on women in videogames? You can find more information on this on Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter fundraising page.

 intimidation and harassment effort has included a torrent of misogyny and hate speech on my YouTube video, repeated vandalizing of the Wikipedia page about me, organized efforts to flag my YouTube videos as "terrorism", as well as many threatening messages sent through Twitter, Facebook, Kickstarter, email and my own website.  These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen "jokes" to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape. 

2) How does Sarkeesian summarise feminism?

Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings."

3) Why do stories matter?

Narratives have always been a core way human beings learn about, make sense of, and understand the world we live in. movies, TV, music, books, and video games are helping to shape our collective cultural universe.

4) How does Sarkeesian view Samus Aran and Lara Croft (the two protagonists from our upcoming CSPs)?

Samus Aran's body is a reward for players. Lara Croft is still objectified and sexualized for a presumed straight-male audience. 

5) How has the videogame landscape changed with regards to the representation of women?

Female characters have evolved since the days of the original Metroid, Super Mario Bros., and Zelda games. a slightly larger number of female characters and more protagonists, but things have gotten worse in many ways. In the 1990s we saw the rise of the "Fighting F@#k Toy," the ubersexualized yet violent female character--and today this trope has basically become the default representation for women in much of the gaming industry. resurgence of the "Damsel in Distress" in recent years as developers rush to remake or reboot many of the classic 1980s games. This trend has also brought with it an upsurge in original retro-style games that pay homage to the classic gaming era but often borrow or reproduce the old sexist themes, plot devices, and humor. This kind of appeal to nostalgia can obviously be a lot of fun, but sadly it's often unnecessarily done at the expense of female representations.

6) Why are Mirror’s Edge and Portal held up as examples of more progressive representations of women?

both characters are women of color, and both serve as the protagonists of their own games without being overly sexualized or objectified. in addition to the female protagonists, both games worked to creatively expand the first-person/shooter genre--a genre overflowing with lackluster clones. Both employed interesting underdog plots, innovative gameplay mechanics, and emphasized less violent creative problem solving instead of brute force. 

7) What are the qualities that Sarkeesian lists for developers to work on creating more positive female characters?

Developers are going to have to take some risks and step outside of the expected or established conventions. some very basic things I look for in female characters are: protagonists with agency not tied directly to their sex appeal; transformative story arcs where characters are struggling with or overcoming personal flaws; and some emotional depth and expression.

8) What is the impact of the videogames industry being male-dominated?

Being male dominated does play a big role in the types of games, narratives, and characters produced. Including more women on development teams is critical for change,  it's important to keep in mind that the problem is not solved by simply having a few token women on staff, or even by just putting one woman in charge of a project. Game companies need to change their male-dominated spaces and internal cultures to shift away from the old boys' club mentality.

9) What did Sarkeesian hope to achieve through her ‘Tropes vs Women in Video Games’ series?

 I want to promote media literacy and give people some tools to look critically at the games we play. To clearly present the issues surrounding women's representations as a systemic problem by identifying reoccurring patterns. Sexist representations are part of a larger institutional problem across all entertainment industries. We can play and enjoy many games while simultaneously being critical of some of their harmful aspects. We can recognize and point out the more problematic representations without necessarily throwing the whole game out.

Teen Vogue

 Teen Vogue: background reading

Read this Guardian feature from 2017 on Teen Vogue and answer the following questions.

1) What was the article that announced Teen Vogue as a more serious, political website – with 1.3m hits and counting?

Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America

2) When was the original Teen Vogue magazine launched and what was its original content?

2004, Teen Vogue used to focus on the standard cocktail of fashion must-haves and celebrity worship. 

3) How did editor Elaine Welteroth change Teen Vogue’s approach in 2015?

That issue featured three unknown black models on the cover, breaking rules that you should have a famous person; and that having no Caucasian faces on the cover is a commercial risk.

4) How many stories are published on Teen Vogue a day? What topics do they cover?

5) What influence did digital director Phillip Picardi have over the editorial direction?

6) What is Teen Vogue’s audience demographic and what does ‘woke’ refer to?

7) What issues are most important to Teen Vogue readers?

8) What does Tavi Gevinson suggest regarding the internet and ‘accountability culture’ with regards to modern audiences? Can you link this to our work on Clay Shirky?

9) What social and political issues have been covered successfully by Teen Vogue?

10) What do Teen Vogue readers think of the magazine and website?

Teen Vogue: Factsheet Part 1

Read Media Factsheet #200 Teen Vogue - Part 1. You can find the Factsheet in our Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive in school or download it here using your Greenford Google login. Answer the following questions: 

1) The Factsheet suggests Teen Vogue has successfully made the transition to an online, social and participatory product. Why? What platforms is it now available on?

2) Look at the screenshots and details on pages 3-4 of the Factsheet. What does Teen Vogue offer its audience?

3) Who is the typical Teen Vogue reader?

4) Read the content analysis of the Teen Vogue website on page 5 of the Factsheet. Pick out three key examples of how meanings are created in Teen Vogue and what is communicated to the audience.

5) Finally, look at pages 6-7 focusing on representations. What range of representations can be found in Teen Vogue and what does this suggest regarding Teen Vogue's values and ideologies?

Teen Vogue textual analysis and example articles

Work through the following tasks to complete your textual analysis of the Teen Vogue website and read notable Teen Vogue articles to refer to in exam answers. 

Homepage analysis

Go to the Teen Vogue homepage and answer the following:

1) What website key conventions can you find on the Teen Vogue homepage?

2) How does the page design encourage audience engagement?

3) Where does advertising appear on the homepage?

4) What are the items in the top menu bar and what does this tell you about the content of Teen Vogue?

5) How far does the homepage scroll down? How many stories appear on the homepage in total?

Lifestyle section

Now analyse the Lifestyle section of Teen Vogue (in the Identity section) and answer the following:

1) What are the items in the top menu bar for the Lifestyle section?

2) How is the Lifestyle section designed to encouragement audience engagement? Think about page design, images, text and more.

3) What do you notice about the way headlines are written in Teen Vogue?

4) What does the focus on education, university and ‘campus life’ tell you about the Teen Vogue audience demographics and psychographics?

5) Choose one story featured in the Lifestyle section and explain how reflects the Teen Vogue brand.

Teen Vogue: Five key articles

Read the following five notable Teen Vogue features then answer the questions below.

Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America

The new face of teen activism 

Black Teens Have Been Fighting for Gun Reform for Years

Netflix and strong female leads 

How to Break Away From the Gender Binary

1) What do you notice about the content and style of these articles? What do they have in common? 

2) How do the articles use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible - what makes the reader want to click or read more?

3) Pick a quote from each article that illustrates the political, 'woke' ideology of Teen Vogue and paste it here.

4) What effect on the audience are these articles hoping to achieve?

5) How do these article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?

Assessment

David Gauntlett has argued against the idea that masculinity is 'in crisis’. To what extent do you believe masculinity is 'in crisis'?
In your response you should refer to your Advertising and Marketing Close Study Products: the Score hair cream advert (1967) and the Maybelline ‘That Boss Life’ YouTube advert (2017).

I disagree with Gauntlett, as representations of masculinity in the modern media are shifting towards something more traditionally seen and portrayed as feminine, masculinity has never had a static definition.

The Score hair cream advert is a strong example of traditional masculine ideals. The man is portrayed as dominant, He holds a gun in his hand, and is surrounded by women who are wearing revealing clothing and reaching out for him. The man is seated above the women, putting him on a raised pedestal, reinforcing traditional gender roles and stereotypes for both genders. This highlights that the representation of men in the 1960’s was for them to be dominant, controlling and sought after by women.

The ways men and masculinity are portrayed in modern media strongly suggest that masculinity is in crisis, especially when you compare them to portrayals of men in the 60’s. In the Maybelline advert, men in the modern world are presented in a largely different light than in the 1960’s. Manny MUA, the male figurehead in the Maybelline advert, breaks traditional (perhaps even old-fashioned) stereotypes of what a man is supposed to be. Manny is a male vlogger and wears makeup in his day to day life and in this advert (something that would not have even been thought of before the rise of the punk/alternative rock in the 1980’s and 90’s... which later died out in the early 2000s) As a modern consumer, this has become normal as a representation, but if looked at by a consumer in the 1960s, they would think that the mindset of men and masculinity has become abstract and distorted from traditional values and representations. Gauntlett's ideas that "The mass media is a force for change... a reflection of changing attitudes" now becomes relevant when applied to modern advertising; the media simply reflects an altered definition of masculinity, instead of threatening the basic and traditional values of masculine ideals.

Whilst analysing Gauntlett's theory we can see that "Views of gender and sexuality, masculinity and femininity, identity and selfhood, are all in slow but steady processes of change and transformation".  Masculinity is created and defined by society's ever changing views and expectations; the media just reflects this. You can argue that men now have more freedom, men are no longer expected to be dominant, Instead they are now allowed to do what they want, even if it is traditionally feminine.  

In conclusion, masculinity is not and cannot be  'in crisis', as it has never had a static descriptor in the first place. Definitions of masculinity have always simply been based on the changing opinions of society. As a society changes, the media reflects it. Adverts are a vehicle to show how men really are and do not push a false narrative that some people may say is happening.