DECEMBER 2016 ISSUE 58 BREXIT THE CURIOUS REFUGEES IN CONCEPT OF GENRE THE MEDIA STRANGER THE AGE OF THINGS STREAMING GOGGLEBOX MEDIA AND DIVERSITY Contents MediaMagazine is published by the English and Media Centre, a non-profit making organisation. The Centre publishes a wide range of classroom materials and runs courses for teachers. If you’re studying English 16 at A Level, look out for emagazine, also published by the Centre. 06 19 04 Making the Most of MediaMag 16 Stream Age Kicks iTunes, Spotify, Tidal – where do you 06 A Hustle for Life: Refugees in the get your music? And more importantly, Media do you pay for it? Ian Bland talks you The English and Media Centre Malcolm Hebron explores the through the search for a new business 18 Compton Terrace misconceptions in the ways migration model for music distribution. London N1 2UN and refugees are reported in print Telephone: 020 7359 8080 and in documentary television, 19 The Power of the Media Fax: 020 7354 0133 and suggests some documentary Steph Hendry considers the power Email for subscription enquiries: texts which represent a bigger of the media in relation to the [email protected] and more sympathetic picture. development of technologies and their impact on social change. Pathetic Fallacy: Representing Editor: 12 Jenny Grahame Brexit 22 Internet Research for Film Studies Jonathan Nunns looks back at Any self-respecting film student knows Copy-editing: Andrew McCallum the carnage provoked by the that informed and critical online EU Referendum, and takes the research is essential – but where do you Subscriptions manager: Bev St Hill media to task for their coverage start? Roy Stafford introduces some of of events and individuals. the most useful film websites around. Design: Sam Sullivan Newington Design Print: This magazine is not photocopiable. Why not subscribe to our web package S&G Group which includes a downloadable and printable PDF of the current issue? Cover: Stranger Things (© Netflix) Tel 020 7359 8080 for details. 2 Contents 50 24 42 60 24 John Williams: The Man with the 56 How to Fly Like Bond: An Interview Midas Touch 40 Goom on Gerbner’s Cultivation with Jamie Chalkley Will Rimmer identifies five key Theory Lucky student Ashleigh Brown moments in the career of legendary interviews James Bond’s stunt Hollywood composer John Williams. 42 BCOMS: Encouraging a More double helicopter pilot. Diverse Sports Media 30 Canons and Battleships Football journalist Leon Mann 60 The Witch: A Feminist Review Mark Ramey discovers why the describes his own route into sports Owen Davey recommends a new montage editing of Soviet director journalism, and the importance of a horror film with a difference. and theorist Eisenstein has earned diverse and inclusive sports media. him his reputation as one of the most 64 Aaron Sorkin: Speaking Sorkinese important filmmakers of all time. 46 Once Upon a Time: The Many Screenwriter Brendan Duggan Re-tellings of Beauty and The Beast explores the career and appeal of 34 Watching Me, Watching You Sinead McCausland investigates his hero, the acclaimed film and Emma Calway explores the the many different versions and TV screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. enduring popularity of Gogglebox media forms of a classic fairy-tale. with its audiences. 66 Social Media and Black Identity 50 Stranger Things: The Curious A Level student Conor Coleman 37 Who Watches the Watchers? A Concept of Genre considers how social media can be Postmodern Reading Claire Kennedy welcomes us to used as a channel to reconstruct, Matt Kaufman considers what a strange new world where sci- re-imagine, or reinforce black identities. Gogglesprogs and Gogglebox fi meets fantasy in the 1980s, can teach us about the slippery and throws up a whole new concept of postmodernism. challenge to ideas about genre. 3 Making the Most of MediaMag 34 12 Watching Me, Watching You: Pathetic Fallacy: Gogglebox and Googlesprogs Representing Brexit Try your own Gogglebox-style research experiment, this time Not unlike this article in response to the Brexit using recent clips from YouTube and other social media vote, on 9th November the world awoke to platforms rather than TV extracts. The aim is to explore how discover that the unthinkable had happened different people respond to, and talk about, online texts. and Donald Trump had been elected 45th • Create a playlist of 10 clips which you feel reflect a President of the United States of America. diverse range of interests and styles – anything from cats Many comparisons have been made between to music to news or political items to comedy clips. the two elections; but while the resulting • Play them on a big screen to a selected group of family outcomes may stem from similar discontents or friends, preferably covering a range of age-groups, and the neglected voices of disenfranchised and ask them to talk about each clip for 2-3 minutes, groups in society, the (well-documented) role while you record or take notes on their comments. You of the media in each case was very different. could also film these discussions to include the body • Pick one of the following media platforms, language and facial expressions of your participants. and research how the Trump team Analyse your findings, considering the following: exploited it in the election campaign: – What differences do you notice in people’s – Print: remembering that the US press reactions to different genres of clip in terms of operates very differently, with very age, gender, familiarity with digital formats, etc? few national newspapers – in 2014 – Are there any particular features which distinguish there were 1331 daily newspapers an online clip from a TV extract? Are they – TV: from the televised Presidential interchangeable, or do you find your group discussing Debates to Saturday Night Live coverage online material in a different way from film or TV – Online, including social media. clips? Were you surprised by any reactions? • Use the articles below as the basis for a short • Discuss with your participants the experience of presentation on international (including watching in a group the sorts of texts they would UK) press reaction to Trump’s election. normally watch alone on their phones or tablets. Do the http://tinyurl.com/h3jo2k6 (Guardian, clips gain or lose when watched on a bigger screen? on reaction of UK press 10.11.16) • Present your playlist and the responses to it to the rest of http://tinyurl.com/oftgeur (Guardian the class, and compare your own findings with theirs. Are on reaction of world press 10.11.16) you able to draw any conclusions from the experiment? 4 Internet Research • With a partner, choose a search relevant to your current area of study and test this article out with two or three of the sites recommended in this article. For example, if you’re studying the horror genre, home in on Stephen Follows’ 22 website, and his ‘Most Culturally Important Horror Movies’. This will give you a sense of the methodology behind Follows’ research, and the sort of qualititative and quantative information this can yield. Move on to another site – e.g. screendaily.com – and consider the genre from an industry or economic perspective; then home in on an individual movie or two, using data from Press Packs and distribution sites, and reviews aggregated from Rottentomatoes. com. Share your findings with the class. What did each site add to your understanding of the topic you were studying? • Roy Stafford, author of this article, was far 30 too modest to include in his list his very own website, ‘The Case For Global Film’ Canons and (https://the-case-for-global-film) which aims to be ‘Discussing everything that isn’t Battleships Hollywood (and a little that is).’ This site is This article refers to the huge influence very helpfully explained, and claims that, of early Soviet film-maker Eisenstein’s Our aim is to introduce prospective theory of montage editing. You can viewers to films that they might not see examples of Eisenstein’s five types otherwise see or to give them ideas of montage on YouTube: https://www. about films they have just seen. It youtube.com/watch?v=MzXFSBlQOe4 isn’t primarily to evaluate films or to The article also introduces the judge them on a 5 point scoring chart Kuleshov Effect, which we have tried [...] Rather than describe the plot, our to illustrate on pages 32 and 33. Have reviews are more likely to highlight a go at designing your own Kuleshov issues, discussion points and, especially, sequence, either in still shots or on ways in which the film might be used as video, and prepare a short lesson for a case study in Film or Media Studies. a GCSE Media group which will help them to prepare for their practical • Pick any one of the films reviewed on this site production work on TV crime drama. that you are familiar with, and compare the review with a range of others of the same film The following links may help: from a range of different sources, including http://www.elementsofcinema. the tabloid press and some of the other sites com/editing/kuleshov-effect- listed in the article. How do they differ? What’s and-juxtaposition/ the value of this sort of diverse approach? https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4gLBXikghE0 5 Exodus Credit: Keo Films for BBC for Keo Films Credit: 6 Malcolm Hebron explores the differences in the ways migration and refugees are represented in print and in documentary television, and suggests some documentaries which construct a bigger and more sympathetic picture. Credit: Twenty Twenty Productions Twenty Ltd Twenty Credit: The Refugee Camp: Our Desert Home he early 21st century has been characterised by huge global issues: among them climate change, carnage in the Middle East, the rise of fundamentalism, and an ever- increasing gap between rich and poor.